Wise old Chihuahua

Luke Litchfield

Luke Litchfield

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46
Name
Luke Cook
Edit My Images
Yes
Day 8,

Picture of our 7 year old Chihuahua, took some advice on this one from a comment on another picture i uploaded from this same evening regarding white balance, little happier with this colour, still thinks it looks a little orange though.
Day 8, Belle by Luke Cook, on Flickr
 
It is very orange - unless you have an orange dog of course! What software are you using to process it? Any will allow you to manually tweak the white balance, most will be able to detect roughly where it should be and correct it for you.

If you are not processing them then look into getting some software, it's part of the photography process, if you don't process the pics they are not finished and you won't be happy with what you've done. It also allows you to make many other changes to the images to get them to a style you like the look of.

I'm new to photography too, it's a big learning curve, just keep at it, but seriously you need to process your images somehow or at least make sure your in camera settings are spot on and the out of camera images are colour accurate.
 
this is processed in lightroom, even using the auto WB which is why i wasn't happy with it :/ not ever adjusted white balance before, is it literally a case of adjust until you like how it looks? or is there a technique. completely knew to adjusting pictures in lightroom and shooting raw so any feedback is great :)
 
I won't put the picture up because you don't want your images edited but I put it through Lightroom and tried auto white balance and it looks like a different picture.

There are techniques to get white balance properly setup, have a search on here - I think there are some tutorials - or have a look on YouTube. Basically you use a piece of grey card. You take a picture with the grey card held next to where you are focussing, you then take your pictures as normal. Once you put them all through Lightroom you find the grey card pic and in the white balance settings you use the colour picker and click it on the grey card. It sounds strange when you first try it, but it works.

You can just move the white balance settings until you are happy. I'm guessing the dog is white, so that should be your target, just move the white balance until it's white and see what you think. It's usually a bit strange as it's such a big deviation from what the camera produced, so it feels wrong. The other thing is we are used to this. For so long we have seen average family snaps and more recently phone pics, we don't look at them and think 'oooh the white balance is way off there', you only think like that when you start to take photography seriously.

Or when you notice your white dog is orange I guess! :D

I've spent a serious amount of time learning, but it's worth doing. There are some really good YouTube videos that can help with so much of this stuff, and they make it sound simple too, and show you how to do it. So much better than just reading a book, though books are great too. Pic your subject, and watch a few YouTube videos on it. Then put it into practice, when you are happy pic your next subject. I don't know where you are starting from but this is my first DSLR so I needed to learn everything really. From all the camera settings, not just what they are and how they work, but really how they work, and how they are used in photography. I needed to learn all about exposure, aperture, ISO, light, flash and loads more. I still feel like I know nothing, which is why I enjoy tryinto answer questions and offer tips - if I can help a little I guess I'm learning something! Flash is my current topic. I've learnt a fair amount but I'm putting it into practice, I've got the equipment but I need to make sure I know how to use it.

It's good that you are making different pictures every day. They say you first 10,000 pictures are your worst, mine are all rubbish, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can produce for number 10,001!

Keep at it, and tweak that white balance until the dog looks like the colour it should. :)
 
NDevon said:
I won't put the picture up because you don't want your images edited but I put it through Lightroom and tried auto white balance and it looks like a different picture.

There are techniques to get white balance properly setup, have a search on here - I think there are some tutorials - or have a look on YouTube. Basically you use a piece of grey card. You take a picture with the grey card held next to where you are focussing, you then take your pictures as normal. Once you put them all through Lightroom you find the grey card pic and in the white balance settings you use the colour picker and click it on the grey card. It sounds strange when you first try it, but it works.

You can just move the white balance settings until you are happy. I'm guessing the dog is white, so that should be your target, just move the white balance until it's white and see what you think. It's usually a bit strange as it's such a big deviation from what the camera produced, so it feels wrong. The other thing is we are used to this. For so long we have seen average family snaps and more recently phone pics, we don't look at them and think 'oooh the white balance is way off there', you only think like that when you start to take photography seriously.

Or when you notice your white dog is orange I guess! :D

I've spent a serious amount of time learning, but it's worth doing. There are some really good YouTube videos that can help with so much of this stuff, and they make it sound simple too, and show you how to do it. So much better than just reading a book, though books are great too. Pic your subject, and watch a few YouTube videos on it. Then put it into practice, when you are happy pic your next subject. I don't know where you are starting from but this is my first DSLR so I needed to learn everything really. From all the camera settings, not just what they are and how they work, but really how they work, and how they are used in photography. I needed to learn all about exposure, aperture, ISO, light, flash and loads more. I still feel like I know nothing, which is why I enjoy tryinto answer questions and offer tips - if I can help a little I guess I'm learning something! Flash is my current topic. I've learnt a fair amount but I'm putting it into practice, I've got the equipment but I need to make sure I know how to use it.

It's good that you are making different pictures every day. They say you first 10,000 pictures are your worst, mine are all rubbish, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can produce for number 10,001!

Keep at it, and tweak that white balance until the dog looks like the colour it should. :)
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thanks marc, i don't mind someone editing my pictures as long as it constructive :). does that mean i have a setting on the forum somewhere i need to change?

Ive not heard of using a grey card before, a technique I'm going to have to most definitely try. I've been using a lightroom tutorial but I'm only 2 videos in and know I'm miles away from getting any better, I'm on day 10! so that means ( counts fingers ) 9,990 pictures to go ! hahah

I'm loving the feedback the more the merrier, i really struggle because a lot of these pictures i don't know how they * should * and *shouldnt* look I'm merely just tweaking them with the basic knowledge at the mo, really hoping that with the help of this forum that i can grow my skill set. I've not thought to shoot a subject and shoot that subject for a while, with the way this is daily its quite the struggle trying to shoot, process, print and upload every day, hence why they are always so late in the evening but its really so great to try and accomplish this daily task. is it a good idea to take a different tac and shoot a subject every day a week do you think. sunsets for example?
 
Go into your profile settings - the bit where you set you avatar - and down the page is a drop down box that says 'edit my images?' - set that to yes.

You know I've been through the exact same questioning as you. In many ways they should look exactly how you want them, they are your images, there aren't right and wrong rules. Except when you want a picture to look natural and not edited by the camera because it was confused by the light. If you wanted the image like that then that's fine, but I'm betting you didn't, as you said you thought it was orange. I'll do it again and stick it up when I get some time later, my son is just settling now and I need to sleep as I've been up since 4am, and I need to get up at 7 :(
 
NDevon said:
Go into your profile settings - the bit where you set you avatar - and down the page is a drop down box that says 'edit my images?' - set that to yes.

You know I've been through the exact same questioning as you. In many ways they should look exactly how you want them, they are your images, there aren't right and wrong rules. Except when you want a picture to look natural and not edited by the camera because it was confused by the light. If you wanted the image like that then that's fine, but I'm betting you didn't, as you said you thought it was orange. I'll do it again and stick it up when I get some time later, my son is just settling now and I need to sleep as I've been up since 4am, and I need to get up at 7 :(
Click to expand...


That would be great, ill change the avatar now.
 
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