Theatre photography - correcting for red lighting

[jgbeam]

I need some advice for correcting for the heavy use of red lighting in a recent stage production of Annie Get Your Gun. While shooting, no white balance setting would remove the red-orange cast that was present in most scenes. Would a filter have corrected for the effect? In post-processing, which I have little experience with, can Photoshop Elements or Jasc Paint Shop Pro solve the problem?

I'm not trying to defeat the effect desired by the director, but the images I have captured are not true to the actual colors on stage.

If it helps, I can post an image or two.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Jim Grant

[KHill]

You didn't mention how the white balance was set. Did you use the camera's defined settings or the a custom setting using a white card? I have had very good luck when I use a white card to make a custom white balance.

That said, you're still stuck with the images as they are. Photoshop allows huge color adjustments, so you can get the balance you're looking for. However, I'm not certain about the version of Photoshop you mentioned.

[Radtech1]

In PSE2.0, I believe the menu is Enhance > Color > Color Cast. That command opens the eyedropper tool. Just select an area that should have been gray, white or black. (Since there is no such thing as black, and gray is a difficult color to define, I look for anything that should be bright and close to white.) Click, and Presto, the image is color corrected.

Rad

[jgbeam]

I didn't use a white or gray card, just used either AWB or tungsten. Not much difference between the two. The other problem is that the amount of red varied from scene-to-scene. I think the only answer is in post processing. Since posting this question I have played around a bit with PSE2.0 and found that Radtech1's suggestion works but tends to over-correct, washing too much red out. I am probably going to have to work on the individual color channels.

In any event, I now know that I can fix the images in PSE and that there is not much I can do about it when capturing the images.

Thanks for the help.

Jim grant

[BDM]

You should be shooting in the raw mode since that will give you the most latitude in making color balance corrections in post processing. Someone mentioned making a custom color balance using a white card. That would be helpful as long as the lighting does not chance after the test which it may.

I suspect that part of the trouble may be that when tungston lights are used with stage light dimmers, they tend to go lower in color temperature as the dimmers are lowered. Less voltage goes to the lamps and they get redder in color. And some of the bulbs may be older than others. Depending on which is used in a scene, the color balance could be significantly affected. Older tungston bulbs are redder than when they were new.

But if you shoot in raw format, you should be able to adequately compensate.

Bruce

[jgbeam]

My conclusion is shooting raw is the only way to go. I have been trying to avoid post processing (lazy me!) but I can see that there is no other way so I may as well work with as much data as possible.

Jim