Beginner question: Correct white balance / monitor calibration

pjm1

pjm1

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Ok, not sure where to post this - it could be any one of a number of forum sections...

Below is an image I took which I was happy with until today. Then my new monitor arrived (Dell Ultrasharp) and I've just realised all of my pictures are WAY too saturated... downside of doing all my processing up till now on a laptop. Anyway, I've... wait for it... eye calibrated my monitor (I know, I know)... and in terms of test images etc., everything looks grand to me. Gamma is at 2.2 (to my eye) and contrast seems ok. I think I've pulled the red tint out which was there but I will, of course, be buying/borrowing a proper calibrator at some point. I'm now going through my images and reducing the vibrance etc., including the one below (which I've now done).

In the mean time, can anyone out there with a proper calibrated monitor look at the image below and confirm whether the white balance/tint looks ok? It was a slightly cloudy day - you can see there was a decent light from the hair highlights but I had to set WB to 5214K and also add in some red tint as the green was overpowering. In fact, I've had to pull down the saturation on greens altogether (the green grass should now look a bit desaturated - it does to me, which was exactly how it was). In other images greens look ok - it's just this one where they've gone rampant (to my eyes with my monitor as set up, anyway).

I like the image and the lighting (apart from a compositional error - I had to crop tightly as there were two trees coming out his head) and just want to get the WB and colour right.

Completely gobsmacked by the colour quality difference (and gamut difference) between the new monitor and my laptop!

20140421-IMGP8215-fl50mm-ISO140-exp1-500secatfnof-56-bias-1EV_zps4cb5e6d9.jpg


Thanks in advance. (edited for typo)
 
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I don't have a calibrated monitor Paul, but to my old uncalibrated eyes that looks good. I cannot see any colour tint and although I can't know the colours of any of the elements in the scene, none leap out as being odd.

Dave
 
Well that's odd... I posted a reply saying thanks and making a joke about old eyes surely being more calibrated than younger eyes... my older brain clearly isn't functioning as well as older eyes!
 
Uncalibrated here too. I think the skin tones on his face look a bit saturated, but otherwise it's OK. For shots like this though, white balance is more art than science. If you want to calibrate your monitor without using a calibrator, try it with a test card and/or an image which you know contains some tones which are exactly neutral.
 
Hi StewartR - agreed and I actually pulled these back a touch last night after posting (his right ear especially is quite orange). I've now pulled the WB a way around to blue from daylight (4845K) and I've also desaturated red through green on the DSL sliders... I think my opening problem was I set my exposure comp to -1 and ended up needing to pull it back up by 1.5 in LR... getting it bang on in camera is always the objective and perhaps would have helped keep the contrast/tones a bit more natural?

I will be calibrating my monitor asap though... It just amazes me how lifeless pictures looked, especially straight from camera before. Now I open them up and I can see detail, colour jumps out (sometimes a little too much) and everything pops so much more. 95% of those contrast enhancements, vibrance etc. I was making simply aren't necessary most of the time, IMO. Now I find I'm dialling down the saturation etc. more often than not.

Thanks to you both!
 
Hi

If its any use i just ran the picture through bridge and hit auto WB it gave -15 to WB and - 16 to tint which looks much better on my calibrated screen (your version does look a little red)

I know you have heard this probably a million times, but you need to calibrate your screen......and if you have heard it a million times its probably time to take notice..

IMO two things will drive you insane before all others in PP,
  • Trying to calibrate WB/Exposure on a non calibrated screen,
  • Dust/spot removal with a dirty screen.
 
Ears are glowing highlighter pen fashion, especially the right one (backlighting is the reason but it does stand out!) but overall colour pallette looks bang on to me. White balance is incredibly subjective anyway, many like cooler tones, many like me prefer warmer ones.
 
pjm1 said:
Ok, not sure where to post this - it could be any one of a number of forum sections...

Below is an image I took which I was happy with until today. Then my new monitor arrived (Dell Ultrasharp) and I've just realised all of my pictures are WAY too saturated.
Click to expand...

This may not be a colour calibration issue. What monitor is it?

If it is a wide gamut screen, then you MUST be using a colour managed workflow. Your images MUST be tagged with a colour profile, and you MUST view those images in a colour managed application or browser.

Any RGB image with the wrong, or no profile will not view correctly. Anything with no profile or anything viewed in a viewer or browser that doesn't recognise colour profiles will probably be over-saturated on a wide gamut screen. Watching TV or DVDs, or playing games on a wide gamut screen will also result in over-saturation too.

Have a look at this

http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html


However... you really need to calibrate.

The issue may also be that you have been trying to get really colourful shots on a sRGB screen without limiting the palette to sRGB via a profile, so when viewed on a screen with a wider colour gamut, they appear more saturated due to your new screen being able to display more colour density.

Colour management is essential.


Anything intended for web or screen use only should be converted to sRGB.

The image posted above looks fine here though - Hardware calibrated Eizo CG303W.
 
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Thanks Pookeyhead... I was secretly hoping you'd join this thread! :)

The monitor isn't wide gamut - it's normal (96% sRGB) - but I'm pretty sure that will be a lot "wider" (less narrow?) than my old laptop screen, which was what I had been using. The monitor is a Dell 2412 and I managed to get it for an absolute steal so I'm not complaining.

Sorry for confusing re: gamut... I was really talking about not having a proper screen before rather than having something extraordinary now.

Thanks re: colour management - that was an interesting read (and I'm encouraged that my setup passed all the tests on that page). I will get a calibrator - as obviously I'll need to use it periodically anyway.

Thanks to everyone for confirming that the setup appears to be ok, if a bit oversaturated with reds (what I found after taking a break from looking at it as well). I'm now about 2/3rds of my way through all my photos taking out the vibrance, clarity, contrast etc. that I'd applied previously... tedious work but my LR skills are so much better than they were, it's not as painful as it could be (and I only have 700 "keeper" photos anyway).

Only downside to all this new monitor malarkey is how many pictures I see onscreen which are way oversaturated. Including from some supposedly "serious" photographers (I hesitate to use the word pro as I don't know if they are).
 
If it's sRGB then that's not going to be an issue then. More than likely it's just a calibration issue. That image you posted doesn't look wrong to me though, do in all likelyhood there's no issue any way :). Slightly warmer than neutral perhaps, but not unpleasantly so. Absolute white balance is a matter of taste any way, and if you didn't take a reference shot with a grey card, then you'll probably never get a truly accurate rendition. Calibration is more for confidence that what you see is what others with correct equipment will also see. How accurate colours will be is down to your colour acuity, and possibly even room lighting as well... unless you use a grey card. Calibrating a screen is also to ensure accurate luminance and gamma... which are more important than colour really, because effectively we're taking about how bright, dark or contrasty the images will appear elsewhere. Colour is subjective to most people.
 
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Thanks Sandy... yes agree with slight over egging on the red tones. Now corrected although not worth reposting really. Also getting comments from family with dodgy monitor setups that the kids now look poorly!
 
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