Newbie needs help

I have a Cannon Power Shot A95 and have messed something up. The pictures used to be just perfect but now my white background looks gray and the colors are dingy.

I tried setting the white balance but that isn't an option in AUTO. I've tried the custom settings but can't get a decent picture of my jewelry. I even reset to original settings but it doesn't fix the problem.

Be kind, I'm a newbie when it comes to photography.

~CarolB

Can you post an example? Does this happen even in "Green box" auto? Is your lens clean?

Here is a picture I just took in Auto mode. Is that what you mean by green box? The background is white paper.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

Looks like you need to set some exposure compensation. Not sure on the A95; I skipped over that model but on the A80 it's on the Func menu; on the A620 it's aseparate button on the back. Give it about +1 and see if that helps.With a white background you need to tell the camera to give it more light; it wants to make every picture average out to a middle grey, like in your example shot. To get this to white, add light.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Hello Carol -

You wrote:

CarolB wrote in post #2551013
Here is a picture I just took in Auto mode. Is that what you mean by green box? The background is white paper.

That picture is exactly as the camera is programmed to "see" it...a light form of gray. Here's the deal: cameras typically look at a scene and try to expose for a "neutral" gray of 18%...that is why one uses a gray card to set exposure. You are shooting an almost all white scene so the camera will try to set it as gray - it doesn't know there isn't a large portion of dark like in your second ("good") image.

Setting the white balance is not the first step (it is the second step). Try setting the exposure compensation first by setting it to +2/3 or +1 stop. You could also try setting the camera to scenic mode, SNOW.

CarolB wrote in post #2551013
Here is an earlier picture before I started messing with custom options.

Looks fine as there is a fair amount of dark along with the white so the camera compensates properly.

You could try making a Custom setting for situations like the first "problem" image.

Regards,
GEWB