Outdoors Photos Taken with Incandescent White Balance

rimrock

New member
This is my first post on the forum, so I will start with a disclaimer: I'm definitely an amateur, and it has been almost 50 years since I took a class in photography. I've been using digital cameras about a decade, but the D7200 is my first DSLR, the rest were point and shoot Nikons and Canons.

I recently took a group of photos outdoors (near Lake Tahoe) with a wrong camera setting, and unfortunately I did not have the camera set to create both a RAW and a jpeg file, so I have jpegs. Here is an example:

D72_4158.jpg

The setting that was wrong was white balance, which was set to incandescent. All of the photos have a strong blue cast. Is there a way to correct this problem, or is too much information lost in the jpeg? iPhoto and the D7200 are the only photo editing resources I have currently (I have an old copy of photoshop on a PC that is mothballed, so I could perhaps resurrect it if that is the only option).

-Dave
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
This is my first post on the forum, so I will start with a disclaimer: I'm definitely an amateur, and it has been almost 50 years since I took a class in photography. I've been using digital cameras about a decade, but the D7200 is my first DSLR, the rest were point and shoot Nikons and Canons.

I recently took a group of photos outdoors (near Lake Tahoe) with a wrong camera setting, and unfortunately I did not have the camera set to create both a RAW and a jpeg file, so I have jpegs. Here is an example:

The setting that was wrong was white balance, which was set to incandescent. All of the photos have a strong blue cast. Is there a way to correct this problem, or is too much information lost in the jpeg? iPhoto and the D7200 are the only photo editing resources I have currently (I have an old copy of photoshop on a PC that is mothballed, so I could perhaps resurrect it if that is the only option).

-Dave
Well since it's a JPG the White Balance information can not be adjusted like it could be with raw file. You could try balancing the color manually but that would take some work and I have a feeling the final result will probably be less than spectacular.
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
I tried a bit but it would take a few passes in iPhoto to correct. If it was me, I'd just go black and white with the whole bunch. B&W would certainly look better than a full color cast picture.

D72_4158.jpg
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Welcome to the forum. ^^^ is probably about the best options you have with your photos. The good thing is you probably learned something about setting up your camera and checking the settings before taking a bunch of shots. We have all been there at one time or another.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
In Photoshop open your image and then invoke the Camera Raw Filter.

In the basic tab set your Temperature to +100 and your Tint to +30, pull your Exposure back about 1/2 stop, then adjust the rest of the sliders as desired depending on the exposure.

Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 1.28.57 PM.jpg


Then go to the HSL tab, go to the Hue section and bring your Purples back to about -50 towards the blues.

Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 1.32.24 PM.jpg

This'll give you a starting point. Then go back to Photoshop, add a Curves adjustment layer and click on Auto or use the midtone eyedropper to click on a neutral gray.

Voila.

D72_4158-x.jpg


You're gonna get some noise, and you may want to play with a Color Balance adjustment layer as well, but you'll at least have something.
 

rimrock

New member
Jake, your solution is amazing. I guess I am going to have to get Photoshop working again. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Marcel, I like the black and white suggestion. I tried it on some of the other photos and they came out pretty well. This one is of Echo Lake.

D72_4205.jpg

-Dave
 
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