Green Cast (in Studio)

[Carlton]

Here is a sample of the green cast I spoke about regarding the WB. What could I be doing wrong? I closely meter the lights (MONO) and do a CWB with a Kodak grey card. These are taken at fine JPG, ORG-ORG-STD.

[Carlton]

With a curves>green channel adjustment to remove some green.

[WJPearce]

Carlton,

In my opinion, with my eyes and my monitor, you have the same green cast that makes the image sort of flat as I do. I much prefer the second pic, having seen the first.

For the record, I am not searching for something to be wrong with my camera as I have seen others do. I have also seen this same green cast/flat look in other people's photos posted here and on other forums. I have also taken auto wb shots that were, in my opinon, perfect (the color any way).

I think it may be more of a function of a person's preference and computer hardware settings than anything else. For me, I really prefer the cooler/cold look. Sometimes I don't think the cast is significant until I mess with the color balance. The Fuji CCD is known to have more green pixels than red or blue, perhaps resulting in the green cast that comes through with jpeg.

Have you ever tried setting the WB with a styrofoam cup over the lens and pointed at the light source? I'm not kidding; generally I have liked the results I get with it.

With all of the above; consider the source. I am not a professional, I'm more of a hack than anything else. You get what you pay for and my advice is.... free.

Bill Pearce

[Wichita Wayne]

I think you better check out you picture on different equipment because the ictures look good to me.

[HulaMike]

I agree with Wayne. Just like yesterday's pics, both look more or less fine on my calibrated 20" Cornerstone p1650. Just like yesterday's plantscape, the first may have an ever so little amount of green cast but not much. The second looks just a little warm; once again like yesterday's posts. Fleshtone in both look pretty good to my eye. Of the two submitted today, the first looks better than the one you corrected.

[Carlton]

Bill,
Thanks for the info. I will try the styrofoam cup, sounds like a high-tech solution.

W. Wayne,
Thanks for your reply. May I ask for a bit more feedback on what you see (on your monitor) the differences between the two images? My monitor is calibrated, but it still may not be correct.

[Carlton]

Mike,
Thanks for the reply. Looks like I'd better get my monitor checked. Another one of the joys of digital,,think I'm going to :cheers:

[Wichita Wayne]

I am looking at the pictures with a laptop LCD screen. They also looked good on my fancy Viewsonic 19" LCD screen at work. Both are pretty good but not the best. I have to use Kentucky windage in PS before I print because the printer is usually light compared to my screen. My LCD does not adjust so I have to darken the pictures a little before I print on my Epson printer. One way to check out your monitor is to print an unmodified picture and compare it to the monitor. If the picture is OK and the monitor is green then add some red to the monitor with its setup functions till everything matches the print.

[VA_Shooter]

Carlton,

I can see what you might think of as green cast in the first portrait, but the second corrected portrait is too red to my eye. I use a LaCie Electron 22" Blue IV monitor which is hardware calibrated every week to keep my lab happy (McKenna Pro Lab in Waterloo, IA). There may be two things going on here...your custom white balance against the Kodak gray card may be off a bit and your monitor may not be properly calibrated. Bill's suggestion of using a styrofoam cup to custom white balance the camera is not actually all that silly . . . I've seen professional sports shooters use everything from coffee filters to opaque pieces of white plastic to balance their cameras in all types of lighting situations. There is a company, Wallace Photo, that produces a device called the ExpoDisc that will white balance any digital camera, using either incident or metered lighting methods that is very, very accurate. I shoot in many different school gymnasiums and aquatic centers where the lighting is very strange...the ExpoDisc completely eliminated my green, pink, blue color shifting/casting problems. The colors were correct the first time, right out of the camera and the exposure, for the most part, was spot on from the very first shot when using the ExpoDisc. I know a half-dozen studio photographers that use them for the very same reason...color shift in their portraits. Look them up on the web and read about the disc . . .
www.expodisc.com

Hope this helps some.

[ianmcc]

I think the difference between the two is so slight, in terms of old school colour printing probably within 10 units. It almost a subjective thing at that point.


If you are WB off a greycard with strobes, make sure any ambient light isn't in the mix, like a overhead fluorescent, for one session and not the other. You'd be surprised how it can creep into your shot, even at 1/125.