Bulbs and Color Temperature

Started by Hellscream333, March 17, 2012, 12:14:14 PM

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Hellscream333

March 17, 2012, 12:14:14 PM Last Edit: March 17, 2012, 03:35:03 PM by Hellscream333
I'm just going to jump right into this...

Read this

I've bought a lot of bulbs from my local grocery store and whatnot and none of them compare to these. Even so, they're not perfect. These things absolutely hate purple and wind up turning that color to an odd blue. The only way to fix this is in post production. Just head into your Hue/Saturation settings and up the hue for blue to 15 or so.

Just thought I'd post this fix because I've seen a lot of pics floating around on various TF sites of Devy and Hercules in light tents and nearly all of them have their purple tinted to blue.
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shmax

Great info, thanks HS. When you correct for the blue, do the other colors get thrown off, or does everything just work out? And how do reds turn out? A lot of folks seem to have trouble there, as well.

Hellscream333

Sorry, this post is huge....

When it comes to the Constructicons, no. No other color changes. This is because we're only adjusting the hue of the blue channel and that channel is only present in the purple on this toy. But that's definitely something you need to keep an eye on when you're trying to make any type of color corrections. Watch your screen and watch your other colors. Zoom in if you need to.

Now, if said toy was colored blue and purple then you'd probably see a change in both colors when adjusting only the blue channel. It's always good practice to have the toy in front of you with some natural light when you're doing this to compare. If the blue is off as well as the purple then adjusting and changing them both is not an issue. So long as you strive to achieve the correct coloring for both.

If the blue is correct and it's only your purple that's off I'd see if adjusting the red channel would fix your purple. There's a good chance that may not work. So you'd end up doing a 'select by color' using your selection tool to isolate the purple and then adjusting your blue channel. This way the blue of the subject isn't affected.

When I was using standard everyday store bought light bulbs and shooting a blue object there were times when my whites would turn yellow. No amount of post production can fix this. The pics are toast. The best way around this is to make sure that your cameras white balance is properly set. Another way to fix it is to bring in a red object and lay it in the corner of your shot. It will balance out your color and you can just edit the red object out later.

In regards to reds - Again, when I was using standard everyday Reveal bulbs my reds sucked. But it wasn't because of the bulbs. I was applying too much Brightness in my post production. Brightness, when overused, will just kill your colors. Sure, you'll end up seeing all the tiny little mold details but everything that's brightly colored will look washed out, spotty and faded. If you have to apply brightness because your dark colors need a bit more detail do so but don't go crazy. +5 should be enough.

Here's an example of red that, well, meh. http://shmax.com/part_details/2303/ironhide
This was done in my old light tent with standard 60w reveals bulbs. But none of that was the color killer. It was too much post production brightness. I killed it. So everything looks soft and icky.

But this one's just right IMO http://shmax.com/part_details/15993/trailer
This was taken in the new light tent with the new "color balanced" bulbs.

While those two shots were taken in two different tents under two different types of bulbs the main issue was with me and not my equipment.


Color differences will vary depending on the temperature of your bulbs. Some people may have issues with purple, some blue or red. It all depends on the bulbs, your camera and your settings. It's important to identify what issues you have and remedy them as much as possible pre-shot by either changing your cameras settings, adjusting or changing your lights etc. The less work you have to do post production the better off your images will be for it.
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