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Neddie Seagoon Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #1 · Stage lighting too blue I shoot stills for my kid's school theater productions and I've now got a small problem with blue light. The lighting designer has installed several LED stage lights. I get that, they're way easier to control than regular stage lights, no gels needed to change colors. The problem is that most of the lighting is still gelled tungsten and the LEDs, especially blue, are making a mess of the color balance. I've attached an example, notice how intense the blue appears in the photo. It's nowhere near that bright to the eye. My cmarea LOVES this blue, but I really don't. Any ideas on how to tone it down? D300, 70-200VR, auto white balance, 1/60, f2.8, ISO 1400 Feb 05, 2010 at 06:51 PM

bigbee Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #2 · Stage lighting too blue Unfortunately, there's no quick fix. You can do two versions of the shot with different WB settings and blend them together. You could also use any number of other tools in Lightroom or Photoshop to tone down or eliminate the blue. Feb 05, 2010 at 06:55 PM

Daschund Woof Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #3 · Stage lighting too blue Hue/Saturation>Blues>Play with Saturation and Hue to your content... Feb 05, 2010 at 07:05 PM

friscoron Offline Upload & Sell: On p.1 #4 · Stage lighting too blue I shoot in theater all the time as well, use a D700 and usually a 70-200. The blues drive me crazy, but then again so do the reds and ambers and any other colors. But I look at it that it's a theater portrait, not a studio portrait, and the lights belong in there. Having said that, this blue does look more intense than usual. Unfortunately, I don't have advice for you, haven't dealt with anything that intense. Ron Feb 05, 2010 at 07:06 PM

kylemiller21 Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #5 · Stage lighting too blue Yup, unlikely to fix that in the camera. Make a selective color adjustment layer, attack the blues. That'll neutralize it real quick. Feb 05, 2010 at 07:10 PM

Gene Schilling Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #6 · Stage lighting too blue bigbee wrote: Unfortunately, there's no quick fix. You can do two versions of the shot with different WB settings and blend them together. You could also use any number of other tools in Lightroom or Photoshop to tone down or eliminate the blue. +1 I shoot mostly stage performance, and I can safely say LED lights are the worst for blowing your color channels. Working with the HSL and Split Toning panels in Lightroom is the best approach. For a shot like yours I would put preserving skin tones at the top of the priority list. All else fails, convert to black and white. Feb 05, 2010 at 09:02 PM

Neddie Seagoon Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #7 · Stage lighting too blue OK then, to fix this get the LD to nuke the LED lights. He's gonna love me... Thanks guys. Yeah, I don't want to completely get rid of the blue, some belongs as it's part of the story, I just want to tone it down to what I saw through the viewfinder. As you say, stir to taste. Feb 06, 2010 at 12:26 AM

pixelwarp Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #8 · Stage lighting too blue I think the original with blue looks better than the edited version above. The hair looks like it went a dull blue/grey in the desat... There has to be a better way. Feb 06, 2010 at 03:21 AM

Cableaddict Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #9 · Stage lighting too blue Neddie, I know the feeling. See below. When I play with my little rock trio, (just local pubs & such) I have a computer LCD right in front of me. It gives off a very sickly blue glow, right into my face. As the rest of the room is tungsten, the photogs can't do much about it, and my face ends up purple. Ughh. I'm thinking of trying a full-straw gel across the whole LCD. If I can still read it, that might help. That might be too severe in your case, but maybe the LD could try a half-straw? It might still be blue, just in a slightly different frequency. I'm also going to try the layers thing in PS, if I can figure out how to do it just on my face, and not the rest of the band. (I stink at PS) Feb 06, 2010 at 03:44 AM

pixelwarp Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #10 · Stage lighting too blue Cableaddict wrote: Neddie, I know the feeling. See below. When I play with my little rock trio, (just local pubs & such) I have a computer LCD right in front of me. It gives off a very sickly blue glow, right into my face. As the rest of the room is tungsten, the photogs can't do much about it, and my face ends up purple. Ughh. I'm thinking of trying a full-straw gel across the whole LCD. If I can still read it, that might help. That might be too severe in your case, but maybe the LD could try a half-straw? It might still be blue, just in a slightly different frequency. I'm also going to try the layers thing in PS, if I can figure out how to do it just on my face, and not the rest of the band. (I stink at PS) Here's a quick stab at yours. Much easier to attack the blue in yours since it's not in blown highlights. I made a layer via copy, adjusted color to eliminate the blue and approximate the skin color in the original, then used a layer mask to apply only the fixed area to the original. Also had to clone out a few stubborn blue spots using the clone tool set to color mode and sampling from good color areas of the original. It's a rough version considering I started with the really small file you posted, but it shows there's hope for yours. It would take someone WAY better at PS than me to fix the first example in this thread... Feb 06, 2010 at 08:05 PM

pixelwarp Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #11 · Stage lighting too blue Actually... I gave the first one another go. I took it into PS, used Image>Adjustments>exposure (had to go -2.0 to recover the blue channel) to bring the hair down so the blue channel was no longer blown... made a layer via copy... desat'd blue -100%... took an 11 X 11 pixel color sample from the warm toned area of the hair and set the paint brush to "color" mode. I then painted in the washed out grey areas from desating the blue. Not as nice as having good light to begin with, but better than the results originally posted, in my opinion. I then done a standard levels adjustment to make the skin tone look right after the negative exposure adjustment. Again, rough draft with missed spots and such due to nature of original file and purpose of my edit. Just showing one way that might save yoru shots if you took some time and masked carefully when fixing them... Feb 06, 2010 at 08:24 PM

pixelwarp Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #12 · Stage lighting too blue On second look I'd probably do the same thing and then blend the "new" hair and shoulders into the original "face" shot. Lost something in the skin in the exposure adjust it seems. Feb 06, 2010 at 08:32 PM

Cableaddict Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #13 · Stage lighting too blue Pixelwarp, THANKS! That's amazing to me. I am copying all this info, and will try it myself when I get a chance, on all the TIFF files. Much obliged! Feb 06, 2010 at 08:56 PM

pixelwarp Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #14 · Stage lighting too blue Cableaddict wrote: Pixelwarp, THANKS! That's amazing to me. I am copying all this info, and will try it myself when I get a chance, on all the TIFF files. Much obliged! No problem. I'm no PS guru by any means but if I can help don't hesitate to pm me. Feb 07, 2010 at 02:21 AM

Neddie Seagoon Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #15 · Stage lighting too blue Well pixel, that's impressive. That's pretty much what she looks like in white light, given the limits you had to work with. I need to practice my PS. I don't really want to take it that far, as this was under stage lighting, and the blue was there to tell it's part of the story. It's nice to know that it can be done. I was rather hoping for a way to do this in camera, or as cable suggested with a gel on the light. I'll see what the LD says about the straw gels, he probably won't go for it as the blue is not this intense to the eye, only to the camera. Feb 07, 2010 at 08:24 AM

Velu01 Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #16 · Stage lighting too blue pixelwarp wrote: Actually... I gave the first one another go. I took it into PS, used Image>Adjustments>exposure (had to go -2.0 to recover the blue channel) to bring the hair down so the blue channel was no longer blown... made a layer via copy... desat'd blue -100%... took an 11 X 11 pixel color sample from the warm toned area of the hair and set the paint brush to "color" mode. I then painted in the washed out grey areas from desating the blue. Not as nice as having good light to begin with, but better than the results originally posted, in my opinion. I then done a standard levels adjustment to make the skin tone look right after the negative exposure adjustment. Again, rough draft with missed spots and such due to nature of original file and purpose of my edit. Just showing one way that might save yoru shots if you took some time and masked carefully when fixing them... This is "do-able" for a single shot. For a promotional poster or a flyer for example, you can concentrate and spend your time "improving" it. In general ya have to shoot theatre productions "as is". One tends to change the whites to whites and skin colour to skin colour. The original shot says "theatre shot", I don't have that feeling with the "corrected" shot. Frankly I wouldn't mind a picture as the one that's posted. There's a problem if someone's facial features get's "washed out" because of the coloured gels. And that's the case with the "orange-till-red" lights. Your camera is unable to andle the "frequency" of red light properly. Often is a black n white conversion the only solution, hah. So, theatre lights often make your life as a theatre shooter difficult, but when it "works" and all comes together, it's magic ! You could ask the light technician to change his light-plan, but you could just as well ask the director of the play to repeat a certain scene all over again untill you get the shot ! :-) Rgds Velu Feb 09, 2010 at 06:37 AM

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