Ice

[MiniChris]

While it is unusal to get icy conditions where I live, it is not terribly uncommon...snow, now that's pretty rare but we've even had a little of that on occasion. I have a little depressed area on the side of my house that is just about at water table level and I shot this picture this morning...but it seems too blue and I used every photoshop tool I know to tone that blue down but when I did, I seem to lose my other colors too much. For this one, I used curves to balance the overall tone, then gave it a new layer adjustment set for soft light...didn't get too tricky with the sliders but did manage to get some better highlights. My question to all you PhotoShop gurus, is what else could I have done, or can do to lose more of that overall blue tone.
F: 29 @ 1.6 sec ISO 640, -4.3 fill flash, WB for Incandescent (yes, I know but all the other WB went way red) 185mm macro at about 20" about 6:00 am in an overcast sky. 24 degrees out - don't laugh, I'm in Florida.

[pono]

Wow, I never would imagine snow in Florida.

I'm not totally sure, but I sometimes use COLOR BALANCE, under IMAGE- ADJUSTMENTS to enhance colors. I'm pretty sure that you could use it to tone down colors. You can also switch from shadows, highlights, and midtones!

Hope that helps!

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Chris,

We know that daylight or clear lean light with no colour cast is 5,500 Kelvin and incandescent is closer to 2,500 so by choosing this you are telling the camera the scene here is very red I need you to add blue to bring it back to a daylight balance and that is what happened. You have significant amounts of blue in this image.

On an overcast day the light source for this image is light reflected from the heavens (not direct light) and has a blue cast. It is possibly 7,500 Kelvin so yes the camera will add red to try and adjust it back to a neutral light or daylight balance position.

If you shot this in RAW go back to the capture settings to remove any colour adjustments you made and then change the white balance to around 7,000 Kelvin (to reflect the actual colour of the light) and the adjust it to get the colour balance you want to portray the image as you perceived it.

[MiniChris]

Peter: How soon we forget. I have been teaching high school photography and only B&W for ther last 11 years (they don't trust us with color chemicals - gads if they ever discovered what I use in my alternative processes...but that's another story), therefore all the Kelvin info went into a storage folder and unfortunately, went fast asleep. Yours is the best solution but I do not have RAW capability yet (not enough computer and need a newer version of PS, which is in the making). However, all is not lost as the camera's WB opens to a K temp dialogue and I can literally adjust to whatever color spectrum I need. Silly me didn't give this thought one...but it will now. Thanks for reviving old memories; the brain can be a funny machine.

[revi]

Even going back to the RAW, you might have problems: EXIF shows you used the flash (with a color temp. of 5500, iirc). If that was a fill-in flash, with the early morning daylight you might have mixed lighting, which can be very hard to correct for. If the flash was the main light source, your basic white balance should be set at 5500K, then move from there to get the effect you want.

[Warren]

There have been times when I have used the 'remove color cast'. I use PSE8 so I am not sure if that is a new feature of it is available on other versions. Just my two cents, and I am by no means a guru when it comes to anything photography.

[MiniChris]

I did use a moderate amount of fill flash and even then I tempered it with a small diffuser. I wasn't so much worried about the blue cast at that point, as much as having lots of glare points come off the ice from a directed flash. I think I can correct for the color temp change in the camera - well, at least will try it in the am...this naughty cold weather needs to go back from whence it came.