eye for color...I think I need to learn this.

[caredock]

Anyone have any good rule of thumb when it comes to pleasing colors in photos. Not just from what you wear but the actual white balance and stuff. Is there any good sites I could go learn about this in order to get that eye for proper exposure and color balance. I might "fix" a photo but then not really see that there is an orange or yellow cast until someone points it out. Should I just keep some good quality photos near me to match color the best I can. I'm shooting in raw now and I love the ability to fix exposure and all that jazz but need something to turn to when it comes to color and contrast of the pictures to get it right.

Caredock

[FlyingPhotog]

Is your monitor calibrated?

If not, do so and many issues you mention will either become less of an issue or go away completely.

The key element of monitor calibration is to develop consistancy. What you shoot today will look the same as what you shoot next week, month, year...

[EDIT] In addition of course, you can always go by the R/G/B values in post processing software. That is to say that when hover the eye dropper over a pixel or pixels and all three values are the same, you are color neutral. Be it 255, 255, 255 (White) .. 0, 0, 0 (Black) or anywhere in between. If you get 255, 250, 250 then you're a little Red .. 250, 255, 250 a little Green and so on...

[Dermit]

As FlyingPhotog mentioned, a calibrated monitor is a good place to start. But beyond that there is a fundamental problem in all of us as humans that i think you are eluding to. And that is that we tend to 'see' things that are supposed to be neutral in color as neutral even when they are not. Like indoor incadecent light we know is yellow, yet our brains see a white paper in this light as white.

Same goes for looking at images that have a color cast. If we have nothing that is truely neutral to compare them to we will not see the color cast as easily. This is why a lot of image editing programs have a gray, black, or white border around the image you are viewing. So it makes it easier to see a cast. Many of these programs have a white balance tool that you can use by clicking on a neutral tone in the image and it will correct for any color casts by making what you click on truely neutral.

Now a lot of times when I correct an image with a white balance tool I will still evaluate it and tweak if needed. Most portrait images look better if they are a little warmer than neutral.. depending on intended look of course.