Trouble shooting DT

[Tomaz]

Afternoon Beyond,

I dedicated this weekend to shooting around the city and learning my new equipment. To my dissappointment, i seemed to have great difficulty getting a shot of downtown mostly due to colour and white balance. I took many shots, most turning out bright orange or well over-exposed.

Check out the pics below and give me some suggestions on how to fix them. I am more worried about colour than anything else. I have pretty basic lenses and body, but i should be able to do better than this!!!!

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/5946/dsc00579i.jpg

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/3273/dsc00578ev.jpg

Any help will be appreciated!

[blitz]

Well you're mixing a lot of artificial types of lights, each which would require a different WB to appear white. I'm guessing the orange in the foreground is from a street light near where you were located.

Easiest bet would be to shoot in raw and attempt to correct WB after the fact. But if you're mixing different light sources, they'll be no perfect setting.

For example, in this picture I forgot I had installed a new LED light bulb in the left most pot light. As far as I know, there's no way to correct for just that one to get it to match the others:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/4358064121_71e691c6ed.jpg

[bcylau]

shoot in raw. then in post (ie photoshop), make 2 images with proper WB for background and proper WB for foreground (your foreground is pretty weak in these shots tho, so I would crop instead of this)

then do a gradient mask with the 2 images so the wb blend, use a brush for finer adjustments.

there is no way to avoid it, since office towers are fluorescent lights and street lamps are tungsten.

you can always just grayscale it, and turn into b&w.

edit: it seems like you picked a good time to shoot. try for "golden" hours around sunset/sunrise so the DR in the buildings and the sky isnt too far apart.

[Tomaz]

Jesus, it sounds like i will have to learn CS4 now. I was really hoping to avoid that for some time. lol

Thanks for the input!

Would that technique work for this photo?:

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/4180/dsc00574a.jpg

:barf: This was the best I was able to do but it made my office towers become very over-exposed. I guess i had to start somewhere, right? :dunno:

[bcylau]

when you make the 2 images of different WB, keep the exposure the same.

quick question - did you shoot in raw or jpeg? if you shot in jpeg there might not be enough WB information to do split processing

[Tomaz]

I shot in RAW.

I'm trying to google a crash course on CS4... Any suggestions? everything i am finding is really intense to read through...

[bcylau]

i suggest youtube some photoshop tutorials, much easier to follow

search

quick mask, masking, layers, adjustments, burn + dodge, selection, cloning + healing, filters, gradients, and probably anything else you were wondering

then after go back to reading type tutorials, they will seem easier

[aych]

Originally posted by Tomaz
Jesus, it sounds like i will have to learn CS4 now. I was really hoping to avoid that for some time. lol

Thanks for the input!

Would that technique work for this photo?:

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/4180/dsc00574a.jpg

:barf: This was the best I was able to do but it made my office towers become very over-exposed. I guess i had to start somewhere, right? :dunno:

if you shot in raw a quick fix would be a grad filter setting in lightroom..

[dragonone]

or HDR it :devil: