Is there a simple way to correct WB issues?

[Isola Verde]

I just checked and where I live, grey cards are not too cheap but I´ll keep searching,

You don't need a gray card, you simply need something that is neutral, that is, doesn't have any coloration.

White will do just fine, and you have a nice white sample here with the tablecloth.

Coffee filters are said to be pretty good and of course, cheap.

Cheaper still, here at least (Clas Olson), are the unbleached ones - though their brown colour means they're not really suitable for this task!

Peter

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Coffee filters are said to be pretty good and of course, cheap.

I'd still prefer a ColorChecker or Passport as I know the whites are spectrally neutral and WB on the off white patches is sometimes a useful trick to get the color appearance as desired.

I agree. The OP did mention that gray cards are too expensive, and so I'd suppose that the X-Rite cards are more so.

Something painted with titanium dioxide paint might be a good alternative solution: artist friends tell me that the color of this white pigment is quite neutral.

 

[Isola Verde]

Coffee filters are said to be pretty good and of course, cheap.

I'd still prefer a ColorChecker or Passport as I know the whites are spectrally neutral and WB on the off white patches is sometimes a useful trick to get the color appearance as desired.

I agree. The OP did mention that gray cards are too expensive, and so I'd suppose that the X-Rite cards are more so.

Something painted with titanium dioxide paint might be a good alternative solution: artist friends tell me that the color of this white pigment is quite neutral.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Or even a nice white tablecloth?

The problem is that many laundry detergents include a fluorescent optical brightener which often is a bluish color. Likewise, paper often has an optical brightener. These might perform better under incandescent lighting, where typically there is very little ultraviolet light to activate the brightener.

But yeah, it probably should work OK.

--
http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com

 

[GCam]

dupe layer>image>apply image>blue>lighten>OK>change layer blend mode to color.gc

 

[Isola Verde]

Or even a nice white tablecloth?

The problem is that many laundry detergents include a fluorescent optical brightener which often is a bluish color. Likewise, paper often has an optical brightener. These might perform better under incandescent lighting, where typically there is very little ultraviolet light to activate the brightener.

But yeah, it probably should work OK.

 

[starlight110]

Once you find a good spot and click on it most of the color cast should be removed but the picture should not look over corrected, that is a mistake some people make they just change one color cast for the opposite.
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PX

Thanks a lot for your explanations, It usually happens to me, what you just described, once I find a gray spot, with R and G pretty close and B higher, I click but the whole picture takes like a sepia tone, I can´t solve this by adjusting HSL saturations, I post an example below in which R and G were almost exactly the same. Should I keep searching for another spot until it takes an acceptable color or am I doing something wrong? In other pictures I had more luck, specially lowering blue Saturation in the HSL panel as you said.

 

[starlight110]

The tablecloth should be white but because of atmospheric light it looks blue (color cast) but if you use it to correct the problem it can be too strong or not enough depending on the point you select, the way I do it is to grab the eye dropper tool for white balance and move it around until I can find a point that reads two values that are very very close or better the same (rgb values shown below the histogram) one will be higher and will represent the color cast, in this case blue, example they could be r67 g67.2 b 72.5 if you click n a spot like this it should remove most of the color cast.

The tablecloth probably has OBA(Optical brightener agents).
That is why we should use a TRUE neutral reference like Whibal or
at least coffee paper filter.

I will give a coffee paper filter a try, thanks

 

[starlight110]

You want cheap? Include a styrofoam coffee cup in one of the photos. No OBA. Make sure to under expose a little so the white doesn't blow out.

 

[starlight110]

dupe layer>image>apply image>blue>lighten>OK>change layer blend mode to color.gc

that PS trick works pretty well, thanks!

 

[Pixel Poetry]

Once you find a good spot and click on it most of the color cast should be removed but the picture should not look over corrected, that is a mistake some people make they just change one color cast for the opposite.

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PX

Thanks a lot for your explanations, It usually happens to me, what you just described, once I find a gray spot, with R and G pretty close and B higher, I click but the whole picture takes like a sepia tone, I can´t solve this by adjusting HSL saturations, I post an example below in which R and G were almost exactly the same. Should I keep searching for another spot until it takes an acceptable color or am I doing something wrong? In other pictures I had more luck, specially lowering blue Saturation in the HSL panel as you said.

Yes this happens some times, it was probably too much, select a new spot, this is why I used the spoon, it's metal and it's gray, the tablecloth could be white but we can't really be sure, it helps to move around and look at the numbers, some times the cast only affects the highlights, midtones or shadows, don't expect to click and have it perfect, you can still tweak it, now that is closer to what you want it's possible to go back to the white balance sliders (Temp and Tint) and adjust by small increments and see how that affect the image, in this case there seems to be a lot of yellow on the entire image so a global adjustment can help, if it is more local then a curve adjustment can help to target better the cast, when most of it is corrected I would switch to the HSL tab adjustments to fine tune.

 

[calson]

I use a white card as I want confirmation of the white for white balance and not the exposure which is where a gray card comes into play.

With digital I use flash and relectors for 100% of my shots as this provides consistent light color temperatures and saves me a lot of time in post processing.

In many situations with food the white balance is not so much the issue as the different color reflectance values for different foods. Try photographing a hamburger with a red tomato and getting the tomato to look good without making the hamburger look like the meat had gone bad. Tough with film but still not a slam dunk even with digital.

In some cases a mask is the least bad or time consuming way to go and the Topaz application makes this relatively painless.

Our eyes also use an available object in an image as a reference point so a less than white plate will affect the perceived colors of whatever is placed on it.

I have done product photography and wedding photography as a professional and wildlife and motor sports as a hobby and none are more technically demanding than food photography (though dealing with "red" bridesmaids' dresses is a close second). There are however more than 100 books on food photography on Amazon and this is a good place to start.

 

[HRichter]

I just quickly edited with lightroom to desaturate all the blue and i've added a slight vignette to draw the focus to the main subject. I've also added a bit of luminance to soften the image slightly. Up-close food photos can be a tad over-sharp sometimes. Are you totally opposed to photographing inside? It seems like your taking these photos outside in the shade and shade naturally has a blue-ish hue, so the camera is picking up exactly what it's seeing. ps- these looks so cute

Heidi

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www.enlightened-decadence.com
Instagram | @enlightened_decadence
Personal Instagram | @heidi_e_richter

 

[Lan]

Note that desaturating blue is a good trick, unless you have things that are supposed to be blue in the shot, at which point it's less useful

Incidentally, I like Heidi's fixes above!