Colour Correction

Many thanks Jur for your help, it was fantastic and I feel that my colour correcton has improved vastly! However, I was just wondering whether you could tell me what you think is wrong with the colour in these rejections:

Wannabe pilot,

I’m glad to have been of help to you. Your photo’s seem quite alright to me, although some adjustments could still be made. However that’s largely a matter of taste.

In general, with the exception of HZ-AKF, I find most of your pictures a little bit too red/magenta, even bearing in mind that it was approaching sunset.

G-ZAPV, D-AKNM and EI-OZB seem to me to be a bit too tightly cropped. More air (especially) in front and behind the aircraft would make a more pleasing composition. Again, this is also a matter of taste of course.

D-AKNM and EI-OZB suffer a little bit from blown-out highlights (especially below the windows and the fin). I’ve tried to correct that a bit, but it is impossible to regain detail when a part is really overexposed.

I don’t know whether you took this pictures in RAW or in JPEG. If at all posibble I would always select RAW, as this provides you with the best correction options (especially white balance, contrast, exposure) in postprocessing.

Did you use auto white balance or did you select a pre-set WB? The quality of auto WB differs from camera model to camera model. Also the WB could change from picture to picture. I would recommend to use a pre-set option like sunny daylight, which will virtually give you the same results as when using daylight slide film. Any required change in WB in postprocessing could be applied to all photo’s taken under the same circumstances.
Another option is to measure the white balance with the camera or to take a test picture of a suitable gray card (e.g. WhiBal) in the same light as your subjects.

In postprocessing it is also important to have your monitor calibrated. Affordable options are Color Vision Spyder 2 and Monaco OPTIX.

Hope this helps.

Many thanks Jur for your help, it was fantastic and I feel that my colour correcton has improved vastly! However, I was just wondering whether you could tell me what you think is wrong with the colour in these rejections:

http://www.airliners.net/addphotos/rejections/big/20070513_EI-OZBno3.jpg (bearing in mind it was approaching sunset)

http://www.airliners.net/addphotos/rejections/big/20070513_D-AKNMno3.jpg

http://www.airliners.net/addphotos/rejections/big/20070512_G-ZAPV.jpg

and http://www.airliners.net/addphotos/rejections/big/20070511_HZ-AKFno3.jpg

Many thanks for your help Jur. I had a go at the new technique last night…would you say that these are an improvement?

I’m glad to have been of help. Your pictures are really much better now and you are quite right in deciding yourself how much correction is required to retain the character of the light you encountered.

One more bit of advice if I may: some of your pictures show blown-out area’s in the highlights (especially around the windows). Try not to overexpose (watch your histograms!). It is generally better to underexpose a bit in raw an correct that in postprocessing. In Photoshop you can regain shadow detail by selecting Image/Adjustments/ShadowHighlights and play with the Shadows sliders (select more options; eg Amount 35%, Tonal width 35%, Radius 60). Hope this helps.

Many thanks for your help Jur. I had a go at the new technique last night…would you say that these are an improvement?

http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1414259

http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1414266

http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1414274

I haven’t matched the whites perfectly, because I find it can take a lot of character out of a shot. For example, what’s the point in shooting in the lovely orange light near sunset, if you’re going to change it to look like they were taken at midday? I have therefore tried to keep a bit of the evening ‘feeling’ but made sure that the colours are all relatively balanced.

What I first did was to use the “color sampler tool” (I) to select the brightest white and darkest black points in the picture and check the RGB values in the “info” panel. Thereafter go to Image/Adjustment/Levels (CTRL-L) and adjust the values of the white point in each of the RGB channels until they have all the same value (adjusting to the highest readout value). Do the same with the black point values, but this time adjust to the lowest value. This is called the 90% method. It may sound complicated, but once you understand the basic principle this method is quite easy to apply.

A good video tutorial on this method can be found here http://www.photoworkshop.com/adobe/softwarecinema/Eddie_Tapp/index2.html

Both the Easyjet and the Air Berlin are too magenta/red on my calibrated screen. I did a quick-and-dirty modification by adjusting the black- and whitepoint values in PS levels.

Could you please let me know which feature that is? Preferably with the shortcut (ctrl-?) since I use the Dutch version.

Thanks for both your help. I could tell that both shots were slightly too red, and found that adjusting the red mid-levels didn’t have much effect. Instead I tried adjusting the red highlights, but it lead to over-exposure where the window reflections are. With the black and white points, did you just drag the slider until it looked good to your eye? I wouldn’t have said my editing skills are bad, just sometimes a little frustratingly inconsistent.

Both the Easyjet and the Air Berlin are too magenta/red on my calibrated screen. I did a quick-and-dirty modification by adjusting the black- and whitepoint values in PS levels.

the first photo is a dead-link. The other 3 show different photos. I am at work BTW, so the PSP workshop will follow tonight. Also, since the monitors here are not of a photo-editing standard (not even calibrated!), the below comments are subject to change after viewing on my own monitor.

Link 2: Air Berlin: The overall photo is rather dark. You should make it a bit brighter. Did you try curves?

Link 3: Easyjet: plane is just a tad dark perhaps. Foreground is definately too dark. Here to using curves should help a lot, perhaps with a bit of added contrast and added colour correction (can’t quite think of the name).

Link 4: Saudi: colours seems OK, for as far as I can tell with this monitor sharpness is good to. Should be acceptable.

Is it me or are they all linking to the same photo?

Hi Peter…

Ok well here’s two…they will only remain here for a couple of days as they’re in the screening queue.

First example: http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1412811. I can tell that the colours look totally wrong. But no matter how long I spend playing around with the balance, I seem to just get further and further away from what it should be.

Here: http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1412831 I’d say that’s a bit more like it?

Another: http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1412839 Not entirely sure, but something doesn’t look right to me?

I would have said this is about right: http://web01.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1412745

It’s just frustrating…I can see that the colours are wrong, but I’m really bad at being able to tell what needs changing. The more I change, the worse it seems to get. And I know that a lot is down to personal taste and how you prefer the colours to look, but there are some general rules that I can’t seem to get.

The “computer” in your camera decides the settings on the amount of light. Pretty obvious when you think of it

However, this does mean that when you focus on a white plane (say Air France), that your shot will be brighter then when you shoot a dark plane (say old style British Midland). Therefor if you got a perfectly balanced shot of an Air France plane, and the next plane is a BD, then you’d better put the exposure adjustment up a tad!

If you can post two examples I shall edit them a bit. Maybe add a few screenshots. My version of photoshop of 7.0-Dutch, but the location of the individual buttons should be the same.