Green cast at Hendon

I went to the RAF Museum at Hendon today to put into practice some of the thoughts I’ve had as a result of this thread. It’s clear that the lighting in the Main Halls is not ‘daylight’ but tungsten. Once I set the white balance to tungsten there wasn’t a problem. See

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68685377@N04/6743780253/in/set-72157628986158899

And

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68685377@N04/6743808313/in/set-72157628986158899 .

I still have issues with the BoB hall where the lighting is awful and very blue. Also the ‘Milestones’ hall has mixed lighting, natural and florescent. I set the camera to ‘cloudy natural’ but clearly this was a mistake, it should have been florescent, see

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68685377@N04/6743730639/in/set-72157628986158899

And

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68685377@N04/6743957647/in/set-72157628986158899

Still, in spite of the reservations these are very much better than those I had before. You can see the entire set of 92 frames at http://www.flickr.com/photos/68685377@N04/sets/72157628986158899/ if you wish. My thanks to all those who contributed.

Regards

green cast

Failing that you have not set the white balance correctly , I have found that ‘Picasa’ is a good program to improve the final image quality , using the ‘one click’ photo editor , the easy program ‘auto colour’ does an excellant job . and is free as well.

avoid the green and go Black n White, everything was B/W in the old days wasn`t it? lol

I don’t know Photoshop Elements I’m afraid. It could be that the sampling is different.

On Photoshop itself you go Image > Adjustments > Levels and the three sampling eyedroppers are there

Moggy

Do I take it that it is possible to have more than one sampling point?

Back in post #3 I mentioned setting black and white points. You need both. Using blanket removal of colour casts doesn’t achieve quite as good a result.

Moggy, just noticed how you phrased your reply ‘Black point sampled in the flap void, white off the fin’. Do I take it that it is possible to have more than one sampling point?

After sampling the black of the tyre I then sampled the white off the fin, but in separate operations. Clearly there is more to this than meets the eye.

Regards

Thanks for that, Moggy. I tried sampling black but from the tyre. The white on the fin was still green, a much paler green, but still green. Your rendition is very much brighter, more vivid than mine. A better photo.

I think I’ll try to go up to Hendon next week and do some experimenting with the white balance sttings on the camera. Might learn a little!

Regards

For comparison. Black point sampled in the flap void, white off the fin.

Moggy

In Elements it’s called ‘Remove Colour Cast’ and that’s what I use.

Brian

Ok, I decided to play around with words as I couldn’t find ‘white balance’ and came across ‘color cast’.

The attached is the correction which is better.

Regards

Thanks for the replies so far which have raised my hopes that the issue will be resolved, but …

The attached photo was taken with a digital camera but the problem has always been there even with the previous slide regime. As can be seen there is a green cast.

When the museum first opened there was great play made that it was to be lit using ‘daylight’ lighting to help photography, hence my assumption that the cast was due to the predominant green of the roof. Duxford has an identical roof (Belfast Truss) but there the roof is painted white and there isn’t a problem. I used to play around with colour correction filters on the (analogue) camera but couldn’t find a solution.

The attached shot was made as as jpg file, the camera permits no other (what is ‘RAW’?). I have looked around the copy of Photoshop I have – an old one copyright date 2002 – and can no way of changing the white balance. Will a later version of the software do this and do I need to cross someone’s palm with plastic?

For many years I have been happily making white balance corrections in Photoshop to images not shot in RAW.

Moggy

So do I, and still do in Elerments.

Brian

For many years I have been happily making white balance corrections in Photoshop to images not shot in RAW.

What’s changed?

Moggy

It really is a white balance problem. The light is very tricky with different coloured light sources. As Robbo advised: do shoot in RAW to be able to make WB corrections in post-processing. Of course a dedicated WB set-up can also be used.

I always carry a very small WB grey-card (WhiBal), which I use to make a test shot with. In post-processing I use this shot to make a WB correction by picking the neutral grey area on this card. I then copy the WB of the corrected image and use this on my other images taken in the the same light.

Before WB correction

After WB correction

David, the way round this is either to set a custom white balance on your camera before shooting. The instruction manual for your camera will show you how to do this, it’s quite simple. You’ll need to keep resetting the white balance as you go around the museum because the lighting isn’t a consistent colour temperature. I carry a white balance target to do this, but a piece of white card will do the job.

Your other option is to use software. If you’re shooting in RAW then you can do this as part of the conversion (quite easy with Canon DPP) or you can set black and white points to determine the level of colour correction. Roundrels are a good source of white points.

Hawker Typhoon 1b MN235 by shuttleworthpix, on Flickr

Boulton-Paul Defiant 1 by shuttleworthpix, on Flickr

It might be the lights themselves and caused by white balance on your camera as I think fluorescent lights show as a green cast. It should be able to be corrected by altering the white-balance in Paint Shop Pro or whatever.