A preponderance of pink and how best to achieve a balance?

[AndrewMcD]

My initial reaction to this image was that I need to adjust the white balance but now I've confused myself enough that I'm not quite sure of cause and effect of the overwhelming pinkish/purplish color cast. Yes, the sunrise had an astonishing pink light but the camera sensor's interpretation of the light and my memory (even immediately afterwards) are somewhat different. I don't recall the color of the scene to be so all pervasive but rather more localized. The image I've captured doesn't appear realistic to my eye. While the light was impressive the photographic image appears that I've pushed the saturation sliders and overwhelmed the image in pink; this is not the case. Except for a slight crop off the bottom and right side I made no other adjustments. This was shot in RAW with auto white balance.

I'm struggling with even understanding what the right questions are to ask........
Can somebody give me some insight as to why the camera seems to have decided to put such a heavy color cast to the image? I'm left wondering why there is significant difference between what the camera captured and my brain interpreted.
Thanks for you patience!
Andrew

[Texas Dave]

What are you shooting with and how did you meter the frame?

[Geoff F]

Looks like there wasn't any pure white in the scene; so your camera/editing software has to decide which way to go with the white balance. This usually works reasonably well with AWB in average situations but the metering systems can easily get fooled by 'strange light' effects.

At least being shot in Raw means you can make various changes until you decide which way suits the original scene; or how you would like it to appear.

When editing in Raw I try to do most tweaks with the White Balance and Exposure settings; less with the Fill Light and Recovery options, etc. Particularly light touch with the Saturation/contrast and Brightness. And rarely touch the Blacks.

[Shadowman]

I've yet to capture a sunset that looked exactly as I viewed it without resorting to manual camera settings.

[Nicks Pics]

Well, in my experience cameras' interpretation of sunsets does not match the real appearance either, and they can't capture it exactly the same; however, if you think this one is unusually odd, I would just start by playing with the WB till it looks more like you remember the colors.

[AndrewMcD]

What are you shooting with and how did you meter the frame?

Canon 6D with Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens. Metering was set for what Canon calls "evaluative."

[Stagecoach]

Can somebody give me some insight as to why the camera seems to have decided to put such a heavy color cast to the image? I'm left wondering why there is significant difference between what the camera captured and my brain interpreted.
Thanks for you patience!
Andrew

Andrew,

I suppose that without knowing 'exactly' how the camera determines a WB to assign for the framing in the metering mode you use at the time it's going to be all guesswork.

I too have come across this especially when leaving things in auto WB at sunrise/sunset and differences from what you see can be quite significant, for this reason I shoot in manual WB now but differences are still noticeable.

[Mike Buckley]

I'm left wondering why there is significant difference between what the camera captured and my brain interpreted.

The possibilities include in no order of likelihood:

• Your brain remembered incorrectly.
• The engineers that designed the sensor leaned toward the red channel and/or more rather than less saturation.
• Your camera's auto white balance isn't particularly effective in this situation. That would be no surprise at sunrise or sunset.

The solution is to change the color balance to be what you want it to be. That's sometimes easier said than done.

[IzzieK]

Put it in ACR and change the WB...till you see what works for you.

[AndrewMcD]

Thank you all for the comments.......I suppose my final conclusion is that the engineering of a camera sometimes produces different results than the best efforts of my eyes and brain.

[Bunty Plumchip]

For some reason I cold not 'like' the original post, probably because I am on tablet. In pp I try to adjust to what I actually saw, although sometimes the camera sees it better, and sometimes effects seen it better still. However, to get the sooc shot right is the aim, which is why I found this not only a potentially beautiful image , but helpful. We all see things, perspectives, colours differently- never mind when they are reproduced in camera and on different screens and media.

Other than colour contrasts etc in layer stages, I don't have enough knowledge to suggest a fix either in pp or in settings, but will watch with interest to see what those who do have to say.

[chauncey]

In my rather limited time being a photographer, I have never concerned myself with the colors that my
camera's RAW image chooses to cough out. It behooves me to select that in my PP workflow.

[FrankMi]

Wouldn't it be great if we could tether the result immediately to a large screen monitor and before the colors of the scene change, adjust either the camera or the processing to get the scene to exactly match what we see?

I often find myself trying to adjust the image in post processing to what I 'think I remember' seeing when the image was taken and wishing I could definitively capture the scene exactly as I see it.