Colour Cast

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.





Any ideas on the possible cause? White balance was set to full sunshine (as far as I can remember)? Is it perhaps slight underexposure? A problem with the white balance? Or something else? I did have a polariser on but have noticed this before with no filters on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

--------
Muzza

I think the top picture looks more natural...

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.





Any ideas on the possible cause? White balance was set to full
sunshine (as far as I can remember)? Is it perhaps slight
underexposure? A problem with the white balance? Or something else?
I did have a polariser on but have noticed this before with no
filters on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

--------
Muzza

Click to expand...

--
s602... gotta love it!

I think you are using the wrong terminolgy here. To me the difference between the two pictures is saturation of color, not any sort of color cast.

The top picture appears to be natural, and maybe a little on the dull side as far as saturation goes.

The bottom picture appears to have a bit more saturation than is natural, but still looks good. I wouldn't say that the bottom is unnatural, only that has 'vivid colors'.

I think its all personal taste, some people prefer more natural color, some prefer vivid, some even prefer undersaturated.

--
Steve
http://www.pbase.com/xx573v3xx

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

I agree, but it may be contrast rather than saturation.

Morris

xx573V3xx said:

I think you are using the wrong terminolgy here. To me the
difference between the two pictures is saturation of color, not any
sort of color cast.

The top picture appears to be natural, and maybe a little on the
dull side as far as saturation goes.

The bottom picture appears to have a bit more saturation than is
natural, but still looks good. I wouldn't say that the bottom is
unnatural, only that has 'vivid colors'.

I think its all personal taste, some people prefer more natural
color, some prefer vivid, some even prefer undersaturated.

--
Steve
http://www.pbase.com/xx573v3xx

Click to expand...

Karl, I use a UV filter on my S602 and still have to boost contrast in most images.

Morris

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is
certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because
of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of
water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the
UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned
might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV
radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out
effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Click to expand...

Me too, would it help to use a better UV filter (im using the cheapest Hoya)?

morris said:

Morris

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is
certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because
of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of
water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the
UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned
might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV
radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out
effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
s602... gotta love it!

morris said:

Karl, I use a UV filter on my S602 and still have to boost contrast
in most images.

Click to expand...

This might be a matter of personal taste. But the filter helps getting the best starting point anyways....
--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Thanks for all the advice guys....now what is the best way to boost the contrast? The saturation is easy...but I'm not sure about boosing contrast

morris said:

Morris

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is
certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because
of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of
water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the
UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned
might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV
radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out
effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
--------
Muzza

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.





Any ideas on the possible cause? White balance was set to full
sunshine (as far as I can remember)? Is it perhaps slight
underexposure? A problem with the white balance? Or something else?
I did have a polariser on but have noticed this before with no
filters on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

Click to expand...

Its actually just poor dynamic range performance. You can artificially boost the 602's flattish pics using a manual levels and/or curves adjustment.

The partial improvement you are seeing using PS is because it is spreading out the color range, the bad part is that it is erroneously adjusting the colorspace as well. You should stretch the range manually using a manual levels adjustment, stay away from autolevels except on an experimental basis, because it changes much more than just levels. Here is a manual levels extention in both the black and white, with the gray reference set to the wet beach...

http://www.pbase.com/image/17315567

All you need to do to fix your 602 images is select levels (above auto levels) then magnify the darkest pixels, select the black inkwell (left one of the 3) from the levels adjuster, then tap the darkest pixel you can find. Do the same for the brightest true white (right inkwell, and then optionally adjust the true gray (middle inkwell) to fix any WB issues.

A curves adjustment can do the same or add value, just pull down the middle point of the curve for a gamma adjustment. But it may darken the image a bit, requiring an overall brightness boost to compensate.

I think you'll find that with an artificial range stretch, your 602 images will generally have more pop.

Murray Thompson said:

Thanks for all the advice guys....now what is the best way to boost
the contrast? The saturation is easy...but I'm not sure about
boosing contrast

Click to expand...

I use the curves tool by pulling down the curve at the darker (lower) end and pushing it up slightly at the lighter (higher) end to form a gentle S shape. You can easily fiddle around with these settings to get the image just the way you want it.
--
Steve Crane
http://craniac.afraid.org

Rasmus, I don’t think a more expensive filter will cut more UV, but it might be optically purer.

Morris

Rasmus Soerensen said:

morris said:

Morris

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is
certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because
of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of
water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the
UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned
might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV
radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out
effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
s602... gotta love it!

Click to expand...

Photoshop curves.

Morris

Murray Thompson said:

morris said:

Morris

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

Murray Thompson said:

Hi All,

I have a bit of a problem with colour (color for those who spell it
that way!) casts. Here are two images...the top is the origianal
and the bottom is auto-leveled in PS.

Click to expand...

The top one looks a bit washed out whereas the bottom one is
certainly clearer but unnatural looking. IMHO this happens because
of UV radiation being reflected into the lens by small droplets of
water. There is a filter that will correct this and that's the
UV-filter (depending on the material the polarizer you mentioned
might do the trick as well) which greatly reduces the amount of UV
radiation reaching the sensor and thus preventing the washed out
effect to happen...

--
regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
--------
Muzza

Click to expand...