C&C Please - Dealing with Red stage lighting

[bsmotril]

I shot these last week where the stage was lit with red and orange spots and some yellow spots on far left and right. No greeens or blues to fill in at all. I not happy with the post processing results. They were all shot RAW +JPEG with the picture styles all set to neutral except for tint set 2 clicks low to the blue side. White balance was set to incandescant.
This is what the Jpeg rendered by the camer looked like, most shots were unusable because of blown out red channel highlights. This was one of the few marginal ones
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/2359907202_51f5c619bc_o.jpg

Here's the same camera rendered JPEG with some attempted color balancing to recover some of the blown reds.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2071/2359076385_8c5c959f60_o.jpg

Now here's what I can get from the raw. I have the recovery slider almost maxed out, the saturation on the reds very low, yellows and oranges low, and red luminance lowered. Then did color balance on the shadows and midtones to boost blues and cyans. I get much better looking realistic blacks, the guitar stays the right shade of green, but skin tones look very unsaturated.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3279/2359072455_8051171354_o.jpg
Is there something else I could be doing with the workflow to get more realistic skin tones and still not blow out the red channel? I know you can't really create color data that is not there, but I'm thinking there's still a lot of room for improvement with what I'm doing to the RAWs. There's more of my attemp at processing the RAWs here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smopho/sets/72157604225829729/

I would appreciate any suggestions for dealing with extreme red lighting.

[bacchanal]

Two words. Black and White.

Seriously though, there isn't a lot you can do. If you're using ACR (or Lightroom), you can try a couple things. One is to try Canon DPP, and the other (besides desaturating) is to play with the luminance sliders in the HSL tab. This can sometimes help make a more realistic looking recovery.

FWIW, I always shoot these situations in K white balance (as low as you can go), and keep an eye on the RGB histogram.

[Palladium]

here's a 2 click workup using the remove color cast filter in NIK color efex pro

http://www.jheckfotos.com/images/o.jpg

[RandyMN]

Lighting is part of stage performance so I would not sweat the red lighting at all.

[PurelySwift]

I agree with Randy, stage lighting is all part of the effect. That said, there can be times when you want a more "natural" look, and some of my own corrections have been well received by the clients for doing just that.

What raw processor are you using? I've found DPP to be the easiest for this, using the circular hue correction tool in the same area as the white balance. Give that a shot and see if it comes out any better.

[René Damkot]

I prefer the look of the jpg, although I like a few things in the version Palladium posted better.

If you use LR or ACR, try the calibration tab first. Do a search on "ACR calibration", and you'll find a few threads.
Second in LR / ACR would be the HSL tab.
On WB: I'd set something like 2500K to 2700K, with something like -10 for tint. (toward the green side).
Lay low on the recovery slider: I rarely go past 15 or 20.
You can lower exposure a bit, then up the brightness, and use curves for a more targeted approach, which leaves the highlights alone.

Alternatively: See what DPP makes of it ;)

[bsmotril]

All,
Thank you for the comments and suggestions. You've given me some good ideas to try. I'm using the Adobe Camera Raw processor, but am going to give DPP a shot with this set too. I like the suggestions about setting the color balance and tint and lowering exposure. I'll try that next time and see if the noise produced in the shadows with the lowered exposure is manageable.
Palladium,
You're treatment looks very close to the way it appeared to my eye live. I'm going to investigate that plug in.

[narlus]

Lighting is part of stage performance so I would not sweat the red lighting at all.


just realize that what the sensor captures isn't necessarily what you are seeing w/ yr eyes.

next time there's a crazy magenta/red stage light situation, shoot a shot, and check the jpg on the LCD...even w/ the white balance set to tungsten or auto, it won't match what you see. at least that's been my experience.

[Bearmann]

If you've blown the red channel, there is only a limited amount that you can do. I am not sure if your 30D and 40D shows a 3 color histogram, but if so, you need to keep an eye on the red channel in lighting like this. If all you have is a luminance histogram, you will need to underexpose the image at the event. You will not see flashing highlights on the camera LCD, as I believe it is based on the luminance histogram, not each individual channel histogram. Because the luminance histogram is an average of all 3 channels, it does not show blown highlights (since the blue and green channels are low).

I do similarly to what Rene suggests. I have little experience with DPP. In ACR, I would first try to use the eyedropper on a neutral area of the image, like the white stripes of her shirt or the white of the guitar. I would also try the auto WB of ACR, as I have found that this frequently gives a pleasing WB. Then I would try the recovery slider, but only up to value of about 30 and preferably less. I have found that larger amounts of recovery seem to take the sparkle out of the image by over compressing the highlights as shown by your last image. If the recovery slider isn't enough, I would lower it to between zero and 20, and then reduce your exposure until the blown areas have recovered. If there was little green or blue information in the original file because only red lighting was used, then there is little to repair the red channel with.

Barry

http://b-r-s-photo.zenfolio.com (remove the -'s)

[ofdphoto]

I shoot this sort of thing with tungsten white balance, and the colours I get are pretty much the same as what was happening on the night. IMO, that's what you want.

If the lighting sucks (as it does more often than not), move em to black and white.

[bsmotril]

I have taken some of the suggestions you've given me with regards to processing these shots, and here's what I've come up with. First is JPEG as rendered by the camera with all settings at standard defaults except for tint two clicks cool.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2268/2366766734_5b54928ee4_o.jpg

The second is from the RAW processed with multiple adjustment layers and curve layers after first bumping the recovery slider way down, and increasing the lowered saturation and luminosity sliders I had previously set in raw back up to the point just short of clipping the reds, oranges, and yellows. Much better...Thanks you all !! This result looks much closer to that of the original performance.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2248/2366766624_198851c7b6_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2411/2366872166_15c2d1638b_o.jpg

[kmb]

Well, if you want, you can e-mail me the raw file and I'll see what I can do (and post the exact settings I'd use). I'd delete it afterwards.

In general, the simple "algorithm" for LR/ACR would be this:
1. Hold down the alt key, and drag the exposure slider until there are no clipped channels in the important parts (face) of the picture
2. Use brightness slider to bring the tonality of the face to a "nice" level. So that it looks good.
3. optionally, you may want to try the contrast slider to see how that affects the image. You may want to revisit brightness

Advanced RAW parameter selection is a rather organic process, since about every adjustment affects all other adjustments.

As a general rule, avoid "recovery" and use negative EC instead.

(and btw, the light quality doesn't look too bad on absoulte scale, the main lights seem to have been "basic orange" rather than red).

[Bearmann]

bsmotril,

I'm a bit confused as to what you did. I understand that the first one is the JPEG straight from the camera. You mention the second one, but what did you do on the third one?

[bsmotril]

The third one was similar to the second with the addition of desaturating the reds more than on the second one.

[Bearmann]

A very nice job processing them. I'm not adverse to going to black and white on the really difficult ones.