I’m struggling to get the ‘real-life’ colour of this item - which is a plum colour. in the photos it turns out darker, and is missing some of it’s plum-ish er…luminance, and it got me thinking, is there something with my exposure/white balance that is messing things up, or is my white vinyl background not quite white?!
2 things I am trying to acheive - a white background, true colours of the item (this is for product photography).
I’ve got good results from just white balancing off the background (spot) - but when I used the white/gray cards to white balance - I noticed something curious - more yellow in the vinyl ‘white’ background.
increase exposure and boost the ‘white point’ adjustment in the ‘shadows and highlights’ tool (masking to remove the object from this effect)
use ‘colour zones’, and simply pick the plum color and boost a bit. EDIT: no longer using ‘color zones’, now using ‘contrast brightness saturation’ and boosting the saturdation a bit.
here’s the result (a rough one): https://photos.app.goo.gl/asWauDncWux2Bpia9.
Does this mean my background (a white vinyl) does have a bit of yellow it in? and that by white balancing against this I am taking out some of the yellow in the plum?
I’m reasonably happy with result (and relatively simple workflow) but would prefer not to boost, as I have several different products in these colours so getting a consistent colour between all products over time can become an issue, so getting it right in-camera / fix the root cause would be most helpful.
I’m interested in any observations/tips about flaws/issues that may be hampering my results.
I have a few ideas on how things could be done differently.
It seems you are not using dt 3.4. That has color calibration, which gives nicer white balance than the old white balance tool. Using that, set white balance to D65, then in color calibration use the colour picker in ‘cat’ tab to mimic your current process, with ‘cam16’ selected.
You are using a display referred workflow with base curve. Have you compared it to a scene referred workflow with filmic? A small learning curve, but typically gives nicer results.
Shadows and highlights module can sometimes do weird things to colours. Better to use scene referred workflow with filmic, and tone equaliser.
colour zones and contrast brightness saturation are not ideal either. try using either a) color balance - boost output saturation, then use parametric mask in Hz channel (hue) so it only effects the plum colour. blend mode normal or chroma, or b) second instance of colour calibration, in cat tab select ‘none pass through’, in R tab set r2, g-0.5, b-0.5, in G tab set r-0.5, g2, b-0.5, in B tab, set r-0.5, g-0.5, b2, blend mode normal or chroma, adjust opacity for strength, and do the Hz mask as described above.
Deep reds and magentas can fall out of gamut if your working profile is linear rec 2020. Switching to linear pro photo might help.
hi, thanks for the question. that has made me think, typically there has been zero ambient light in my shots (i.e. a black photo if the strobes don’t fire) but I have recently changed some camera settings and I noticed a little bit of ambient light coming in which I haven’t though too much about (see https://photos.app.goo.gl/GCAsUCB3AaTnqaNt9 ). I will adjust my camera settings to ensure no ambient light is getting in.
thanks soupy, you’re taking me into deep waters and appreciate the advice!
Will upgrade DT, have not ventured into filmic yet but will now take the plunge (I only modified the white point in the shadows&highlights module, nothing else). Will digest items 4 and 5 report back, thanks!
Since you see a color shift there are two possibilities:
the sheet is not neutral (probable, but if it’s good quality probably wouldn’t make a huge difference); or
the sheet and the subject are getting light of different color temperatures (for instance it looks like there is an overhead light that would hit the sheet directly, while the front of your subject would be in its shadow, so getting most of the illumination from your strobe).
If the latter you would want to turn off all other sources of light before capturing - and white balance in post off a gray card in front of the subject. If the former, and you are willing to live with a yellowish background, white balancing as above will give you the more ‘accurate’ subject colors. You can always easily fix the background in post.
thanks Jack, IF there is no ambient light present via camera settings (i.e. an entirely black image without strobes) is the overhead light/skylight still going to have an impact?
The less overhead light you have on the sheet compared to what comes from the strobes, the less the impact, as you suggest of course. Do you have an idea of the relative color temperatures?
do you mean colour temp of the overhead and ambient light? It’s a flouresent tube, how would I figure out the ambient light color - just take a pic of the white card in the ambient light?!
here’s a cropped pic of the space, I had never noticed this yellow! it’s not as apparrent to the eye, but really obvious in the image! I have another piece of vinyl which is designed for photography, I’ll compare the two to see if it’s the material or the light. hmmm.
