Bad color cast

[diamante67]

Hi Damien,

I am struggling with a bad red color cast - I tried to increase lightness/decrease sat as well as replacement color with curves and I am not getting anything decent. Do you have any recommendations on how to handle this? (PS I am not done with the editing)

[Damien Symonds]

Even though it looks yellow, and orange in some parts, was the flag in actuality red?

[diamante67]

yes - it's because of the backlight and it is blown but I will live with that...

[diamante67]

this shows the colors a bit better (sorry for the double pic - I cannot seem to be able to delete it)

 

Edited April 26, 2016 by diamante67

[Damien Symonds]

Do not - repeat, DO NOT - try to remove the red cast.  It belongs there, it's meant to be there, and the photo would look darn weird without it.

Instead, make the flag redder.  Own the cast.

Give me a few minutes, I'll post something.

[Damien Symonds]

[diamante67]

really? I am going to own it alright!

Care to share how?

[diamante67]

Wait... let me guess. Channel mixer?

[Damien Symonds]

5 minutes ago, diamante67 said:

Wait... let me guess. Channel mixer?

Actually, no, not this time

First Levels layer:

• Green channel 0/0.50/255 and 0/130
• Blue channel 0/1.00/255 and 0/100
• Mask VERY carefully to the red part of the flag.

Second Levels layer:

• Red channel 0/0.50/255 and 0/225
• Green channel 0/0.60/255 and 0/245
• Mask VERY carefully to the blue part of the flag.

[diamante67]

So... this is a call for help. I did it - thank you so much for the help. But... it took me at least one hour to do the masking part, maybe even more. For the future, is there anything I can do to make the masking less painful? Is it really boiling down to experience or am I missing something?

[Christina Keddie]

Were you at least using this trick?  http://www.damiensymonds.net/2010/10/shift-while-brushing.html

[diamante67]

I was not. I did read about it some time ago but I forgot about it. I will try to practice and see if I can start using it more regularly.