Color casts??

[Dr_Doom2]

I'm a wanna-be photographer with a decent DSLR but these lights are giving me fits!!

Even in Photoshop, it's tough for me to produce a nice balanced photo under my T5's. I have 2 actinics and 2 10K's.

Does anyone have any suggestions for balancing the colors yet still leave the feeling that it was shot underwater?

Thanks!!

 

[ccCapt]

I don't have a DSLR, but my camera lets me set the white balance by holding a piece of white paper against the glass and setting it with that. A box comes up on the display, I have the white paper in the box and it sets the white balance based on that. I have metal halide lights, so I also turn the expose down. My pics are far from expert, but I think I'm getting better.

 

[Dr_Doom2]

That method of setting white balance doesn't seem to work for me when shooting my tank!! Everything still looks blue. If I try to correct for this, there seems to be no effect until it assumes some random color cast in the other direction!!

My best success has been working with the levels in Photoshop but it seems like the normal rules for fixing white balance issues get thrown out the window with actinic lights!!

...and yes your shots do look nice!!

 

[ccCapt]

Even tho I haven't tried it yet, did you try shooting in RAW? You should be able to do alot in Photoshop in RAW.

I took this pic under only VHO SuperActinic lighting, which is very blue.

 

[Dr_Doom2]

Looks nice!! I've tried RAW but PS7 doesn't directly support that format. Even with the plug-in, it seems to act funny when dealing with them!!

 

[JasonC]

Are you setting your white balance for 10,000 Kelvin, or using an auto/preset level? You may need to dig into you setup menu to see if you can set the white balance as a specific degrees Kelvin.

Oh... and to retain the under water look, if you figure out you can set the white balance above, then set the WB to something *slightly* lower than 10k. anything lit with light higher than your set white ballance will come out with a blue-ish cast... the key is to experament to find exactly the tipping point between looks like shot underwater, and why did you pour a bucket of blue paint into your tank.

 

[Drewbie]

Sounds like a fun project

Post a picture lets all photoshop it and post the results with what steps where taken