I may not be a color editing expert, but I am almost always able to get things to a place I am happy with. I am having a really tough time with two small sections in a session from last week. Everything just looks...subpar. If anyone wants to have a crack at it, I would love that...I have already spent quite a bit of time on these (especially considering they are just deliverables), and I am hitting a brick wall.
heh...no worries. So, what did you do? I am litteraly having complete brain freeze here...might be partially due to being up most of the night with my wife coughing.
I'll just send you the DNG file back on FB You'll see I messed with the hue sliders. I first zeroed everything you did on the sliders. You'll see the difference.
I always try to find something gray in the picture, when in a pickle like this. In the first picture, they're leaning against a gray concrete wall, so I use the wall to give me an idea of where the color should be.
In the second picture, I thought the steel beams might be painted gray -- and then turned yellow from that nasty tungsten streetlight. And Scott's rendition confirms that for me. Use that as your neutral color, and you're on your way.
If so, not much you can do beyond Scotts effort. They only emit yellow frequency light and cannot really be white balanced. The bits of red and blue that you are getting in your image are from your flash.
I might try setting the WB for flash and backing down the G and R channels till you get something close enough.