That was so damn cool. I don't trust my eyes' ability to nail the color even a little. Having an approach like this will eliminate a lot of the anxiety around getting good color balance. Thanks for sharing your approach!
Wicked nerd here. This is really interesting. I use the Color Checker Passport and it does pretty well. Using the (LR) Color Grading tool and the tiny RGB historgram, I lined up the channels in the histogram in shadow, midtone, and highlight. The difference is subtle, but definitely better. Thanks Gary!
Color is my nemesis. I can calibrate my monitors every hour. Set the color on the camera to match the lights. Use the color card. And, somehow, my skintones are still off. And it doesn't seem possible because Canon has all the great skintone science. And yet.. I struggle. I'll have to try this a couple times but.. it does make sense. Mathematically.. it's neutral.
I never really think about the colors on my laptop screen because I never edit on this computer, but watching you edit I thought the colors looked super warm when you were done with the adjustments. So I went into my computer settings and saw "true tone" was turned on. That setting is probably great for watching movies or surfing the web I'm sure, but turning it off I really got a good sense for the edits you were making.
YESSSSS!! So good!! Thanks so much for sharing this! If you say this is nerdy...I guess I'm a nerd too, because I thought this was the coolest thing ever! LOL!!!
Thank you for your video. I too am color deficient and struggle with a good, basic skintone correction. This will help improve my workflow, as I find myself second guessing adjustments that I am making. Any other content that you could recommend for color deficient photographers would be greatly appreciated. Abount 10% of all males are color deficient. So, that ratio should apply to male photographers as well. Thank you once again!
Hey, how are you! Grata vídeos! I also find out You from winter park, Im Altamonte springs and Aldo a photographer. Maybe we can meet one day…. Thanks for the great videos
This was awesome, is it possible I can send you an image and get your feedback on how to correct it? I do have the color checker but forget to use it a lot 😒
Hey Alterick! Thanks for watching. If you need any specific help with editing, bidding, website reviews, etc. I offer 1 on 1 mentoring through my website. Fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you are interested. Unfortunately, I don't have the bandwidth to take on all requests, but it is an interesting idea for a future video "I edit your photos" hughesfioretti.com/education/
bring on the nerdy! I enjoy learning this. I tend to go lazy on the shoot and keep auto, unless I'm stationary. Maybe putting effort at the shoot will help me be less indecisive in post of what looks more white. I've been really enjoying your videos on headshots. Looked into your portable backdrops, and wondering if you could do a video on them and why you chose those specifically. I have a collapsible black and white backdrop, it was about $80 on Amazon. But it's totally bowed and hard to work with. And the white is not white and that frustrates! the black bleeds through and makes it more of a grey.
I appreciate you watching! The background I use the most is the Wescott X-Drop. I prefer it over pop ups because of exactly what you mentioned, the wire frame always goes bad eventually. There really isn't a perfect solution, but X-drop is pretty great, especially if you travel to shoot a lot.
@@GaryHughesOfficial it's mainly travel. i don't have a studio and i create in my living when i want to shoot from home. i use the black side all the time on the pop up and works great. you do have a savage collapsable on your website. could that be a good recommendation or do you get the same problem with the white?
I really don't use collapsible at all any more from any brand. The X-Drop also has black and loads of other colors if you really like black for your work. Savage will be a better brand than most, they stand behind their products.
I'm red green color blind too. What if I'm taking a picture of someone (or something, like a butterfly on a flower) during a sunset (golden hour) for example ? Or at the blue hour after sunset ? Or at night in a city on a street with yellowish light ? Surely I want to preserve the color cast of the scene, it's part of the atmosphere of the image ? Does this technique apply in such circonstances ? Or only in studio when you want no color cast at all and everything to be neutral ? Natural light in the world outside isn't neutral and I want my images to reflect that...otherwise every picture would look the same...Is there something that I missed ? Thank you.
The bottom line is this: so you want a neutral white balance in your image? Then this technique is a good place to start. As far as scenes with particular color casts, if you are happy with how it looks when your shoot it, I guess that’s fine. But a lot of that is going to depend on your WB setting when you shoot it. There is WAY too much info regarding color science to explain in a YT comment, but this is simply just a way to get to neutral.
Hello I'm also a colorblind, thanks for this tutorial now I'm a little bit more confident doing my skin tone.. with that said, I have a question.. What if I'm also want to color grade with a specific theme, like the most common Teal & Orange? Can you also make a tutorial for those grading?
What you are talking about is a color grade. Best thing to do is get a neutral color balance, then grade your image with the style you want. I’ll think about a video on the topic
YEAAAAAH I love when we get really nerdy doing post-processing of photos... Gary I do have a question about the RGB curves.. when you say alignment you mean in the X axis or both X and Y axis of the histogram? because in the video I only saw that you did align them in the X axis. Please correct me if I'm wrong
Yes, the X axis. As long as it’s a solid grey or white, you should be able to do both. If you are in more complex tones, you won’t necessarily get the y axis lined up. Great question.
Hey Gary, as usual excellent video. I generally shoot with a gray card and then in Lightroom use the eye dropper tool. Is your method doable in LR? Thanks again.
If Lightroom has an RGB histogram and color wheels then yes :) I honestly haven’t used LR in quite a few versions, but I would imagine it has the tools
This was very informational but I have a question. You corrected the white balance but the background white looks really yellow. What do you do about that?
Well I can’t account for your screen, which in this case might be warm, but I can tell you that if you use a proper grey card and use this method, your image will be mathematically color neutral. As an example, if you watched this on an iPhone at night, it would definitely be warm, but that’s just an example.
@@GaryHughesOfficial right I forgot all monitors, etc are different if not calibrated. On my screen when you toggled between before and after the after looked really yellow. I will do more experimenting. Thank you for always teaching.
anyone know why photo editing software doesn't have something like the flesh line on a vector scope for video editors? Seems it would be beneficial for stills.
Not really, no. It’s just a matter of color accuracy. Truthfully if you use a good calibrator you can make almost any decent monitor work for most things. Don’t drop 2k on screens until you really got your process down. I would also check eBay and FB marketplace, anything from BenQ or NEC should be great.
Same idea, just use the shadows. Most of the time in portraits you will get a good WB from highlights and mid tones, but sometimes you need to do the shadows (mostly in mixed flash/ambient conditions)
I know this is a nerdy one, feel free to ask any questions you might have!
That was so damn cool. I don't trust my eyes' ability to nail the color even a little. Having an approach like this will eliminate a lot of the anxiety around getting good color balance. Thanks for sharing your approach!
Glad you enjoyed it :)
Wicked nerd here. This is really interesting. I use the Color Checker Passport and it does pretty well. Using the (LR) Color Grading tool and the tiny RGB historgram, I lined up the channels in the histogram in shadow, midtone, and highlight. The difference is subtle, but definitely better. Thanks Gary!
Very cool!
Color is my nemesis. I can calibrate my monitors every hour. Set the color on the camera to match the lights. Use the color card. And, somehow, my skintones are still off. And it doesn't seem possible because Canon has all the great skintone science. And yet.. I struggle. I'll have to try this a couple times but.. it does make sense. Mathematically.. it's neutral.
I like that this works no matter what you see, it’s just neutral.
I never really think about the colors on my laptop screen because I never edit on this computer, but watching you edit I thought the colors looked super warm when you were done with the adjustments. So I went into my computer settings and saw "true tone" was turned on. That setting is probably great for watching movies or surfing the web I'm sure, but turning it off I really got a good sense for the edits you were making.
Yes the True Tone and night time modes are death for getting accurate color
Yes, YES, YES.... Thank you for this nerdiness... exactly what I needed!
Happy to help :)
YESSSSS!! So good!! Thanks so much for sharing this! If you say this is nerdy...I guess I'm a nerd too, because I thought this was the coolest thing ever! LOL!!!
It’s a neat trick, for sure
Thank you for your video. I too am color deficient and struggle with a good, basic skintone correction. This will help improve my workflow, as I find myself second guessing adjustments that I am making. Any other content that you could recommend for color deficient photographers would be greatly appreciated. Abount 10% of all males are color deficient. So, that ratio should apply to male photographers as well. Thank you once again!
I will certainly come back to this topic at some point if I think of anything worth making :) thanks for watching
Such a great video.
Thank you!
absolutely fabulous technique
Glad you like it. I got the idea from watching a great video on color correction for video.
Great as always 🙂
:)
Nice one Gary, thank you.
No worries, glad you liked it
Median Blur in Affinity, and with Color Balance may put histogram on 128 value
Sounds like a very nerdy and cool way to do it! Thanks for watching
I love everything about this. :)
I thought of you the whole time while making this
Hey, how are you! Grata vídeos! I also find out You from winter park, Im Altamonte springs and Aldo a photographer. Maybe we can meet one day…. Thanks for the great videos
Appreciate you watching. I am a member of a photography group that meets once a month in Orlando. Www.theppcf.com
Fantastic!!!
Glad you liked it!
Very handy tutorial, even if you spelled colour wrong.
lol, Canadians...
Great tutorial, even though I know all that stuff I still learned from this video.
Glad to hear it!
This was awesome, is it possible I can send you an image and get your feedback on how to correct it? I do have the color checker but forget to use it a lot 😒
Hey Alterick! Thanks for watching. If you need any specific help with editing, bidding, website reviews, etc. I offer 1 on 1 mentoring through my website. Fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you are interested. Unfortunately, I don't have the bandwidth to take on all requests, but it is an interesting idea for a future video "I edit your photos" hughesfioretti.com/education/
bring on the nerdy! I enjoy learning this. I tend to go lazy on the shoot and keep auto, unless I'm stationary. Maybe putting effort at the shoot will help me be less indecisive in post of what looks more white. I've been really enjoying your videos on headshots. Looked into your portable backdrops, and wondering if you could do a video on them and why you chose those specifically. I have a collapsible black and white backdrop, it was about $80 on Amazon. But it's totally bowed and hard to work with. And the white is not white and that frustrates! the black bleeds through and makes it more of a grey.
I appreciate you watching! The background I use the most is the Wescott X-Drop. I prefer it over pop ups because of exactly what you mentioned, the wire frame always goes bad eventually. There really isn't a perfect solution, but X-drop is pretty great, especially if you travel to shoot a lot.
@@GaryHughesOfficial it's mainly travel. i don't have a studio and i create in my living when i want to shoot from home. i use the black side all the time on the pop up and works great. you do have a savage collapsable on your website. could that be a good recommendation or do you get the same problem with the white?
I really don't use collapsible at all any more from any brand. The X-Drop also has black and loads of other colors if you really like black for your work. Savage will be a better brand than most, they stand behind their products.
Thank you, Nice tutorial, Can we use temp and tint slider to achieve the same ?
Yes, but not as much fine control. Line up the histogram and you’re in good shape
@@GaryHughesOfficial Thank you,
I'm red green color blind too. What if I'm taking a picture of someone (or something, like a butterfly on a flower) during a sunset (golden hour) for example ? Or at the blue hour after sunset ? Or at night in a city on a street with yellowish light ? Surely I want to preserve the color cast of the scene, it's part of the atmosphere of the image ? Does this technique apply in such circonstances ? Or only in studio when you want no color cast at all and everything to be neutral ? Natural light in the world outside isn't neutral and I want my images to reflect that...otherwise every picture would look the same...Is there something that I missed ? Thank you.
The bottom line is this: so you want a neutral white balance in your image? Then this technique is a good place to start. As far as scenes with particular color casts, if you are happy with how it looks when your shoot it, I guess that’s fine. But a lot of that is going to depend on your WB setting when you shoot it. There is WAY too much info regarding color science to explain in a YT comment, but this is simply just a way to get to neutral.
Hello I'm also a colorblind, thanks for this tutorial now I'm a little bit more confident doing my skin tone..
with that said, I have a question.. What if I'm also want to color grade with a specific theme, like the most common Teal & Orange? Can you also make a tutorial for those grading?
What you are talking about is a color grade. Best thing to do is get a neutral color balance, then grade your image with the style you want. I’ll think about a video on the topic
YEAAAAAH I love when we get really nerdy doing post-processing of photos... Gary I do have a question about the RGB curves.. when you say alignment you mean in the X axis or both X and Y axis of the histogram? because in the video I only saw that you did align them in the X axis. Please correct me if I'm wrong
Yes, the X axis. As long as it’s a solid grey or white, you should be able to do both. If you are in more complex tones, you won’t necessarily get the y axis lined up. Great question.
@@GaryHughesOfficial Thanks so much for your reply and sorry for my typos and calling the histogram instagram... I just corrected all the crazy text.🤭
Lol, worries
Hey Gary, as usual excellent video. I generally shoot with a gray card and then in Lightroom use the eye dropper tool. Is your method doable in LR? Thanks again.
If Lightroom has an RGB histogram and color wheels then yes :) I honestly haven’t used LR in quite a few versions, but I would imagine it has the tools
This was very informational but I have a question. You corrected the white balance but the background white looks really yellow. What do you do about that?
Well I can’t account for your screen, which in this case might be warm, but I can tell you that if you use a proper grey card and use this method, your image will be mathematically color neutral. As an example, if you watched this on an iPhone at night, it would definitely be warm, but that’s just an example.
@@GaryHughesOfficial right I forgot all monitors, etc are different if not calibrated. On my screen when you toggled between before and after the after looked really yellow. I will do more experimenting. Thank you for always teaching.
No worries!
anyone know why photo editing software doesn't have something like the flesh line on a vector scope for video editors? Seems it would be beneficial for stills.
Totally agree. Once you learn how to use the tools in video editors, photo editing software seems old-fashioned by comparison
Affinity photo has it. ( has them? Have them)
What monitors do you use for photo editing?
I have two BenQ SW271 monitors. I think they are a really great choice for being the intersection of price and performance.
@GaryHughesOfficial thank you very much for your fast response. Is there something in the range of $300-$500 you might recommend?
Not really, no. It’s just a matter of color accuracy. Truthfully if you use a good calibrator you can make almost any decent monitor work for most things. Don’t drop 2k on screens until you really got your process down. I would also check eBay and FB marketplace, anything from BenQ or NEC should be great.
@GaryHughesOfficial Thank you very much for your help and advice. May God continue to bless you and your family.
No worries!
How about the darks? Yes, I'm being nerdy 🙂
Same idea, just use the shadows. Most of the time in portraits you will get a good WB from highlights and mid tones, but sometimes you need to do the shadows (mostly in mixed flash/ambient conditions)
@@GaryHughesOfficial I recently shot an event in mixed lighting. Let's just say it caused me to grow more grey hair, lol.