Last spring I captured this photo of a Virginia Rail feeding a chick. I managed to capture the moment that the morsel of food was being given, but unfortunately given my position, there was some close foreground grass in the way that gives the whole right side of the photo an ugly green tint. I’ve been unable to come up with a way to rescue this photo. Does anyone have a tip for doing this?
2026-06-06-0038.CR3.xmp (10.4 KB)
2026-06-06-0038.CR3 (33.8 MB)
Hi and welcome. It is customary to include a license for the raw image. Usually creative Commons is suggested.
Please also downsize ans compress the jpegs you share.
This JPEG is partially salvageable in GIMP.
Add a new layer, set the mode to Subtract. GIMP will initialize it with transparency.
Select a Paintbrush tool, use the “2. Hardness 050” brush, and adjust it like this:
- Size: 916 (assuming that you work on the full-size 5230x3488 JPEG file)
- Force: 1.0
- Incremental: yes
Select aeb484 as the foreground color (I sampled it from a part of the image that was the most representative of the parasitic color).
Then just brush over the green leaf repeatedly.
EDIT: better results are obtained if the extra layer is initially filled with black, not with transparency. And here is what happens if I, instead of using one static color, sample it as needed.
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I think this is a good application for multiple color calibration modules, and a fairly straightforward one.
I left the initial module as “as shot in camera” but put a mask on it, including the top greens and the unaffected area on the left.
Then I used the second instance to correct the broad area on the right. I’ve set the illuminant to be green~olive ish, as it is, and aimed to overthrow by a little bit, because it’s easier to correct it later on than to leave some tint in.
With the third instance I did some selective tuning for the parts where the grass stands out more. Same thing, the illuminant is ~olive and I’m trying to overthrow.
With the fourth instance I’m selecting the general area on the right and setting the new white by placing the autopicker on the beak (it should be grey) and then correcting the remaining colour casts using the RGB channels.
And finally I re-introduce the warmth with the color balance rgb module while keeping the shadows relatively neutral.
With a few additional color balance rgb modules I correct the remaining offset near the black level (e.g. to make the black bird look black). And I correct the black levels with a couple of haze removal modules.
2026-06-06-0038.CR3.xmp (107.7 KB)
I’ve been eyeballing + scrolling around instead of the more precise changes, and a lot more can be done, but I think this is the right direction in general. I was mainly focused on the faces with my masks and didn’t bother that much correcting the right hand side, which should also be trivial to correct.
So 3 main areas of focus:
- setting the independent white balance in that area, pretending that the illuminant is green (can also be done with channel mixing alone), and then fixing it back to be more like what the camera has captured (a mix of white balance and channel mixing)
- correcting the RGB levels near black to remove the remaining colour casts
- correcting the black level itself to compensate for the fade the grass is introducing (can be done in numerous ways, including multiple tonemappers!)
Also by no means this is the correct approach and I don’t claim any proficiency with darktable whatsoever. Just the way I’d have done this
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Another attempt using the same 3 principles above, just tried doing it with 2 separate tone mappers and fewer color calibration modules. Maybe the black level is a little overcooked here but looks much better nonetheless.
Unfortunately the left bird’s head needs specific attention because it’s black so the overlaying object produces a stronger cast on it, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a couple of simple masks.
2026-06-06-0038.CR3.xmp (73.0 KB)
3 Likes
My version – I think it’s turned out quite well. Edited in Ansel, using luminosity and colour masks to cover up the imperfections.
2026-06-06-0038.CR3.xmp (153.3 KB)
4 Likes
I don’t find the green tint to be terribly ugly. Is it perfect? I don’t think so, but the foreground green gives a sense of depth to the photo and a sense of the bird’s environment. Instead of trying to fight the scene or the light, just work with it and accept that it’s there.
I think it’s the wrong attitude to try and “fix” stuff like this. I think it’s not conducive to becoming a better photographer. You can just see that in some of the examples above where people are trying to fight the light. Doesn’t look natural at all. Completely eliminating the color cast looks rather hideous because you can tell something was there but it isn’t.
Just embrace the environmental nature of the photo. Leave some of the tint in there, maybe tone it down a little and add a little red or contrast to the shadows (with a gentle touch) but don’t get rid of it.
2 Likes
Exactly. This is not staged photography after all, and adding the environment of the animal is always a plus. A completely blurry background or just the bird in frame, while nice as a portrait and to display the animal itself, doesn’t tell much at the end of the day…
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AI does a decent job on this one if you want a presentable copy of the photo but at the end of the day its going to be the owners decision to cull it or keep it as best they can restore it, how ever they restore it…
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Wow, thanks for all the suggestions. There’s a lot to consider here and techniques to learn. Regarding just embracing the environmental nature of the photo, I get that and usually that’s my approach. But in this case where there’s something obviously in front of the lens partially obscuring the subject, it exceeds my “just leave it alone” threshold. If I had had the opportunity I would have moved a foot to my left to get around the grass, but unfortunately in this case that was not possible. Anyway I appreciate all the opinions and ideas.
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This is what I have done successfully before, using Gimp.
Select the area carefully that you don’t want green in. feather at 50pix if still at the large size maybe less if smaller. Then copy your selection and paste it as a new layer, invert the colour of that layer. Then using GMIC go to unpurple and click on it. Back to Gimp and invert the colour again and use ‘grain merge’ layer mode.
I didn’t do really well this time but have got some of it out.
