white balancing a mood lit room

I took some shots at a friend's wedding this past weekend, and I can't decide how to handle white balancing the reception area which was mood lit by these pinkish/orange lights.

1. The non white balanced one

I'd say create a blend of the two, and see how you like it. I'd like to look at a version 3, just to compare, before I'm able to decide. Both of these have their own 'features' such as the blue skylight, and table cloths, but the warmth in 1, which sets a nice mood. 3 might just be the 'Goldilocks' desire' of them all. <-- apologies for that stupid term...but, it's all I could think of.. ... though, it is rather catchy. Ha.

I suppose it depends what mood you are going for? It is a pink hue throughout....

I will assume that you are looking for the "correct" white balance - not a contrived balance that fits some taste criteria. If so, then you might want to try a Custom White Balance and here are references to help you.

*************Gray Card***************
Tutorial on Use of the Gray Card for Exposure and White Balance:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/GrayCardTutoria​l.htm
or the downloadable PDF version:
http://www.zaffora.com​/W9DMK/GrayCardTutoria​l.pdf

Personally I'd set it to whatever your taste is, which one you'd prefer. Bounced fill flash might have brought out the "proper" colours of the table and its contents whilst still keeping the ambient light of the room, so that could have been an option. I'm not saying you should have done that but I understand where you're coming from with regards to your shot. So like I said, whatever you feel works best.

I agree with Manish. Use a layer mask to apply what you like about one image to the other.
Using a Layer Mask to hide part of an image. Advantage is that the mask is reversible, where the effect of an eraser is not.
Need to remove a background from something?

Would you try to make a sunnset neutral? Remember, you're the judge. The "Correct" WB may not be the "Right" WB for a image.

Thanks Frank. Seems like I'm learning a lot from you guys. You're like my teachers.

assuming you shot it in raw, why not open dpp, chick the ink dropper next to the white balance box and click on a few of the white spots on the image (like the white flowers on the table or the base of the candles. Dpp will then set the WB of that point.

Try a few different points and pick the one that suits the image the best. Its quick and easy and has some science behind it

Karlos, that's actually what I did to create the second image. =c)

Strictly personal taste (no science) I liked a blend of the two images. I moved the opacity slider back and forth while watching the image, and when I found what I thought was appealing it ended up being exactly 50%.

Boosted the contrast and exposure to brighten it a tad.

Straightened the image in both vertical and horizontal axis. You had a fair amount of keystoning occuring due to pointing the camera down to take the shot, and you were tilted to the right as well. It may seem nitpicky, but it does affect the overall feeling of balance to the viewer.
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damn, that is a nice mix of the two. Nice job Leuce.

I'm glad you like it. You do sacrifice sharpness in order to fix the keystoning, and tilted horizon in Photoshop so try to take your shots at a height that gives you the scene you want while still being able to keep your camera level. Minor tweaks in post won't hurt too bad, but the bigger ones do so be aware of the phenomenon while you're shooting.

I know your original question was WB related, but I thought I'd throw this into the mix for spice

I actually like Duece's edit here the best. The one thing I might have added to it was I would have tamed down the blue on those skylights...maybe desaturated the blues just a bit. To me on the edits, that blue -really- stands out against the pinks and is really distracting....pulls the eye away from the table and right to the skylights (especially in the op's edit).

I think this is a really good example of the truly subjective nature of "color" as well as white balance. To completely neutralize the whites in this shot would be such a huge mistake because...well...that'​s not how the room was lit obviously. When you're dealing with "mood lighting" the color of the lighting is indeed part of the "mood" so the whites really shouldn't be white at all but should reflect (literally) the color of the lighting.

In this situation, I would certainly take a degree of "artistic license" and create the lighting more along the lines of how people will tend to remember it. We humans tend to have -very- poor memories when it comes to things such as color as there are soooooooo many shades of any given color. In most peoples minds I believe color tends to desaturate over time...most people don't really remember colors as being quite as vivid as they actually were so there is some room to work with things. The one piece of advice I would give to the op is that if you plan to give any of these to the bride and groom and you have more than this one single shot (which I would assume you do), then do make sure that -all- of the shots are balanced the same...which ever way you decide to balance them!

Just my $.02,
Jim

thanks for the suggestion Walczak. I do have four shots from this room of the different table settings and it does look odd if they're all balanced differently. I'll have to work on getting them the same.