Colour temperature

[Felisek]

Here is a photo I took yesterday on a bright sunny day:

The white balance was at auto and the camera decided the colour temperature of 5650 deg and the tint of +10, which is very close to daylight. I kept these values, tweaked the image a little (enhanced contrast using Tonal Contrast in Nik tools) and you can see the result above.

Then, I realised it looked very much like the old Windows XP desktop. I search for it on the web and found the my grass looks almost yellow in comparison to the Windows desktop. I came back to my raw file and tweaked the temperature until I matched (more or less) the colours in the Windows desktop. It turns out it required 4150 deg and the tint +21. The resulting image looks very different:

The grass is more green and the sky is more blue. I didn't have a grey card with me, but I suspect it would show a white balance close to daylight, as in the above picture. The white balance measured on clouds give the temperature of about 5000 deg and the tint of about +14 (it depends where you measure).

I'm perplexed. When I made the first version I kind of liked it. It was nice and warm. However, in the second version the grass looks much more green and, by comparison, the first version looks almost dry and burned. It wasn't. We have spring here and the grass is actually green, though not exactly the shade as in version 2.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

I'm learning to correct color myself and I'm finding there's a lot to it. Part of the problem lies in the fact that when we see familiar things in photos, like green grass, our brain will tell us it looks green because it knows that grass *should* be green. It is only when we see "not green" grass alongside grass that is truly green that we see the color shift, like in your photos above. There's also a lot more to it than white balance alone. The more you work with correcting color, though, the better you get at identifying off color in your photos.

Someone once pointed out to me that Nikon camera's tend to shoot on the "cool" side, and now I routinely use apply a separate Levels Adjustment layer, drop down to the Blue color channel and move the Midtones slider from 100 to 95. Not every photo needs this subtle adjustment but the vast majority of shots look better for doing this. It's one of the best tips anyone has passed along to me.

The tutorial that got me started color correcting my photos is this one, Fix Tone and Color with Levels In Photoshop, from Photoshop Essentials. It's not absolutely comprehensive, but it's a good start.
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[cbay]

My photos appear too cool quite often and the magenta seems high a lot as well. Felisek, either one could have been accurate depending on the day from my perspective, often the sun will give a yellow cast to the green grass.
Nice shot by the way.

 

[jay_dean]

The first one has a more realistic feel to it. The second seems to have a surreal aspect (nothing wrong with that!). The sky is very blue, the clouds very white, the grass very green. I'm waiting for the Teletubbies to run into shot at any moment

 

[Horoscope Fish]

The first one has a more realistic feel to it. The second seems to have a surreal aspect (nothing wrong with that!). The sky is very blue, the clouds very white, the grass very green. I'm waiting for the Teletubbies to run into shot at any moment

I agree the second shot looks a bit over-saturated... If it were my shot, I'd probably dial back on the opacity or desaturate a a little.

This edit shows a -25 to Saturation, -10 to Vibrance and -10 on the Blue channel mid-tones. It's not perfect but I think it's a little less inviting to Teletubbies. ..
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[Felisek]

I agree, Paul, it is probably a tad oversaturated. I was trying to match the Windows standard wallpaper and probably overdid a little.

But the main issue is the white balance, or more specifically the colour temperature. The two approaches give very different grass and I'm not sure which is better, or more "natural".

I just remembered that the Windows wallpaper was taken on Velvia and allegedly not retouched in post processing. Velvia gives very saturated colours (I know very well as I had taken thousands of pictures on Velvia myself!) and it amplifies greens and blues. I think the rather unusual colour profile of Velvia required me to change the white balance dramatically in order to match it.

 

[wornish]

Whats right is a tough and personal call to make. It depends on the intended use as well.

I like the original and Paul's version. But you can't complain about the Windows desktop we all grew up with it's a classic, I guess.

 

[WayneF]

Someone once pointed out to me that Nikon camera's tend to shoot on the "cool" side, and now I routinely use apply a separate Levels Adjustment layer, drop down to the Blue color channel and move the Midtones slider from 100 to 95.
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At least Vivid is likely too blue.

 

[Felisek]

Very good point, Wayne. I played with the temperature, but not with Picture Control. Here is standard conversion (no post processing):

and this is Vivid conversion (again, done in ViewNX 2 with no post processing):

Clearly, Vivid is much closer to the Velvia profile. I usually ignore Picture Control and leave it at Camera Standard in ACR. It turns out it affects not only saturation but individual colours as well. Hm... Might play with Vivid in future...