Are you working with a profiled monitor to start with ? If not start with this tutorial and set it up . Once you’ve done that you may want to look at the IgnoreExif plugin available for download.
<
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_2.htm>
If your image is actually that bad from the camera, perhaps you can post it or email it, and we can look at it.
🙂
Brent
Hello Brent
I am working on a laptop! Please don’t faint. My impression was that you can’t really calibrate a laptop monitor.
Anyway, it’s not only that it looks blue on my screen—it’s blue when I print it out, too.
Thanks for replying so speedily.
kasuroburns
Well,
I’m working on a laptop , too, right now, and I can get better balanced color by running the Adobe Gamma utility to adjust the colors and create a profile. Why don’t you do that, you may find it is sufficient to your needs. Most likely , it will be better but still not good enough. Find a CRT to hook to your laptop if you can for actual editting.
If you have the bandwidth, email me a copy and I’ll look at it, but I’m no graphics expert , though we have some lurking around. <G>
🙂
Brent
Hi Brent, I did send you a copy of the picture and it was kicked back to me immediately!
kasuroburns
Kasuro,
Does it print with a blue cast, too? or does it print ok and the blue cast just shows on your monitor?
Robert Ash
Oh, no, Robert, it prints blue, too! I wouldn’t care if it were only my monitor. Although Brent has let me know that calibrating one’s monitor is considered proper Photoshop behavior. Am steeling myself to the task.
kasuroburns
Must be proper, ya’ know ! <G>
Oh, no, Robert, it prints blue, too! I wouldn’t care if it were only my monitor. Although Brent has let me know that calibrating one’s monitor is considered proper Photoshop behavior. Am steeling myself to the task.
Yuk.
So the good news is that your printer is printing what your monitor displays. And the bad news is that your printer is printing what your monitor displays….
A few more questions:
1) Is this the only picture affected this way?
2) Are you by chance using Kodak paper with an Epson printer?
3) Is this new behavior, or did it do this before, too?
Robert
I am quite sure the blue is the fault of a bad photo, taken by a bad photographer (me). Not the paper or whatnot.
So yesterday I took four more versions of these photos—outside in full sunlight, in our bathroom, in the spare bedroom, and another one in the bathroom but in a different spot.
Have downloaded them, and they are all very different in "cast." Fascinating. The first bathroom ones are sort of pink, which I may like (haven’t printed them yet). The one done outside is the whitest. However, I can’t count on full sun here in Seattle so I don’t want to be dependent on it. Others are greenish or bluish.
Will continue playing.
kasuroburns
If you’re getting that much variation, maybe you should post some information about the camera you’re using. You may have some settings that can be adjusted as you’re taking the photo. I’m NOT one of the photographers in this group, but I seem to remember discussions about how to compensate for some of these problems. Maybe. 🙂
Suggestion:
(1) Get a piece of white (really white) paper, cardboard, or whatever …
(2) Read your camera’s instruction manual(s) …
particularly anything about ‘White Balance’ or ‘White Point’ …. and learn how to set up a Custom White Point …
(3) Set your camera’s ‘Custom White Point’ using the card referenced in step 1 …
Done.
wrote in message
I am quite sure the blue is the fault of a bad photo,
taken by a bad photographer (me). Not the paper or whatnot.
So yesterday I took four more versions of these
photos—outside in full sunlight, in our bathroom, in the spare bedroom, and another one in the bathroom but in a
different spot.
Have downloaded them, and they are all very different in
"cast." Fascinating. The first bathroom ones are sort of pink, which I may like (haven’t printed them yet). The one done outside is the whitest. However, I can’t count on full sun here in Seattle so I don’t want to be dependent on it. Others are greenish or bluish.
Will continue playing.
kasuroburns
Are you using flash? … The colour cast could be due to reflection from the walls especially if you are using it in a small room with bright coloured walls.
Wendy
My camera is an Olympus D-460, 1.3 megapixels. In its day it was a very nice camera but it is now megas of pixels behind what one might consider standard. I’m not sure it has "settings," as such. No, I haven’t tried the flash with these. I have tried it with other photos of illustrations and was not too happy with the result.
The strong pink cast was on photos taken in my green bathroom, with the illustration lying on my white tile counter (there was some pinkish tile way behind me). When I taped the illustration to the bathroom mirror, directly above where I had laid it on the counter, I got a greyish cast. Those taken in full sun outside were greyish, same shade as above but a tad lighter.
On the ones taped onto the bathroom mirror, I did auto brighten and contrast and then pumped up the brightness and contrast to about 38 on that little sliding scale thingie. The results are acceptable. The colors don’t have the freshness of the original, though. I am considering committing the no-doubt cardinal sin of actually painting right on my printed photo, using the driest watercolor mix I can concoct. What the heck.
For those who might be saying, Why not scan the illustrations—-well, I don’t have a scanner. And I did use a friend’s scanner to digitalize some other watercolors but was less than impressed with the results. The colors lost their freshness, too.
Gee, this is fun. Thank you for all your comments!
kasuroburns
Has this only just started to happen? It could be that there is a problem with your camera.
Try using the onboard flash … it may work OK on your illustrations. Its worth a try. Will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Wendy
If you have fluorescent lighting and the camera’s white balance is not correctly adjusted you will get a green cast – as others have said light reflecting off nearby surfaces and different types of artifical lighting will give different colour casts. The fact that outdoor sunlight is OK makes me think that either the auto white balance on the camera is not functioning correctly or you have white balance incorrectly set for one particular light source.
You can print on water colour paper (subject to the type of printer that you have), but be aware that the inks may well run when in contact with water. I’ve had some luck colourising greyscale pencil drawings by scanning or photographing and then painting using PS Elements paint brush and then printing the results – to avoid the problem with colour casts from your camera, you could photograph, desaturate in Elements and then use Elements brush tools to tint the image.
Oooh, the PS Elements paint brush. Why didn’t I think of that?
I physically painted on my photo and it turned out pretty well! The paper puckered at first, but when it dried it flattened back out. Hmmm. But I will try the computer/digital way. Being an old-fashioned girl, my first thought was naturally low-tech.
Thank you, Wendy and Susan, for those ideas.
kasuroburns
kburns,
Did you try photographing your illustration outside in the shade? This might produce the best image.
That Seattle overcast is the perfect lighting diffuser for shooting artwork. I use to shoot mine with regular 35mm neg film and always got a slightly bluish cast because I used the morning overcast coverage. Noonish overcast is the most neutral.
If you want to use available outdoor lighting for shooting artwork, make a box big enough to fit the dimensions of your piece out of white foamcore from a craft shop for added bounced white lighting to eliminate stray shadows and casts. Have it standing up with one side left open for light to come in and drape white cheesecloth on top in enough layers to diffuse the direct overhead noon sunlight if needed. Bounced light is the key to a well exposed artwork shot.
Don’t shoot in the morning or afternoon. You’ll get a cast. Include something close enough to neutral gray on the edge of the shot to neutralize to in Elements and later edit out.
You need to realize also some watercolor pigments have a gamut that can’t be captured by certain digicam RGB spaces. Not sure about your camera. You can always edit later.
"I have tried various fixes—brightening, color correcting (auto and manual), color variations, and hue saturation."
kasuroburns,
Did you try the Elements correction for color cast?
Enhance / Adjust Color / Color Cast
Place the cursor (dropper) on the white paper, and left-click the mouse.
If the paper is really off-white, you could include a sheet of white paper (or cloth) along a side of the illustration (to be cropped off later), and click on that part of the image to correct for the color cast.
OldnSenile
Since it’s the picture itself you might try going into Elements then click on Enhance and choose Auto-Levels or Auto Color Correction. I’ve found those features to be surprisingly good at detecting and correcting color casts.
Robert
