Hi Everyone -

I am new in the forum, so thank you all for the good info already found here.

I recently shot a New England factory being demolished, and have a question about the exposure/colors. The time of day was 8AM, the sun was at around 30 degrees from the horizon (camera WB set to daylight), the histograms looked fine... But the colors came out extremely harsh.

Is there some technique in Photoshop to mitigate this? I've tried all the usual adjustments (levels, curves, H-S) but none really seem to work.

I am attaching two of the photos here. Would appreciate any input or directions to a source of input on this sort of thing.

Thanks,

Glinda

The used tools are not good for white balance fixing. I don't know Photoshopo, but I suspect there are no tools for white balance.

I performed a WB with PhotoResampling, changing color temperature.

Are these raw or jpegs captures? What software are you using to process? The answer to those questions will determine how you might be able to proceed. You are shooting under harsh(contrasty) early morning light. This would be a good example of utilizing the "expose to the right" method of exposure to get some more detail in those shadows. If you shot raw(best option) and are working with Photoshop with ACR you should be able to adjust a lot of the problems you are concerned with. If you are shooting jpegs your options are greatly reduced and could induce more problems.
As you are finding out, digital capture is A LOT more demanding exposure wise, but is more adjustable than film when shooting raw.
Two items I would highly recommend is the ACR tutorial form this site AND Jeff Schewe's book on the ACR. I would say that the combination of the two would result in a very though understanding of the raw process and adjustments.
It is extremely important to understand the information found within the histogram to better understand what corrections you want make. Just making adjustments without this knowledge can(especially with jpegs)be destructive.

Glinda,

It just looks like those were shot in very harsh light. You probably need to knock down the contrast and perhaps the brightness. Easily done in ACR or Lightroom. If you've got CS3 the new brightness/contrast tool in an adjustment layer would probably do the trick.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

I am shooting raw (Hass 3FR), converting to tiff in Flexcolor, then adjusting in Photoshop (these pics were converted without any changes for purposes of illustration here). Flexcolor is not nearly as user friendly as ACR. People say it is worth getting used to, but after years of ACR, it is a bear.

I was hoping for a magic bullet here, but it doesn't sound like there is one (historically I have just discarded photos with these issues, but here had no choice of time or day to complete the assignment).

Again, thank you all. I will go back to FC and start over again.

When I get an image like the one on the left, I try to cut back slightly on highlights, and bring up the shadows a bit, which may not help if the noise increases too much. If it still looks too intense I may reduce saturation a little. Those are my quickie methods working with JPEG's - if you have RAW originals you can do a better job there (if you know how).

Good morning


From the Flexcolor import window, you can choose the export the hasselblad 3fr files as adobe dng.

from there you can use your normal acr/lightroom workflow without having to wrestle with flexcolor.

hope this helps.

Tom

Hi,

I think the solution might be easier than we've been talking about so far. To me the original looks a little contrasty--no argument there--but also a little dark. I believe that a simple lightening applied in Curves, or Levels, or whatever conversions software you're using, would do the trick.

MB

Thanks, everyone. Appreciate the input.

Glinda