Too yellow in low light?

I always have problems when shooting indoors at night. All my pictures seem to come out yellow no matter what different settings I try. Any tips to avoid this? I've tried higher ISO speeds, setting the white balance on tungsten, adjusting shutter speeds but they all come out yellow. Any tips would be much appreciated. I've attached a sample. Also, if anybody has post production tips that could change it would help too. Thanks in advance! (yes, I'm a newbie)

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That would be a white balance issue.

good job getting that shot with no flash at 1/5 regardless of your white balance issue. I assume you had IS? Anyway, I deffinitley agree that its a white balance issue. Try adjusting WB incrementaly rather than using the presets during your PP. if all else fails i usually resort to using the "click" feture to get an idea where i should be.

Two solutions:
1. If shooting jpg, make a custom WB. (See manual)
2. Forget about WB and shoot RAW. Set WB in the post-processing.

Get a flash and shoot in a lower ISO, that will make the background darker and a more pleasing image.

Definatly shoot in RAW so you can correct the white balance better.


nice shot BTW

Grey cards can work wonders.

Learn to use a flash, and it will help illuminate her face as her eyes are rather dark in your photo.

Thank you all for the feedback so far. Very helpful!

Could be shot under tungsten lights..

If you shoot RAW you can adjust the white balance in DPP or do an in camera white balance adjustment.. When shooting under tungsten lights a WB balance of around 3200 degK is closer to what your eyes see..

Also to help maybe salvage some of the shots you already have, try a cooling filter, in photoshop they are under image>adjustments>photo filters. Nice shot BTW, but I would like to go ahead and +1 the flash comments from earlier.

white balance is still too warm even on tungsten setting. from the look of the picture, it looks like 2800k would be a good starting point.

hooookup wrote in post #9061938
white balance is still too warm even on tungsten setting. from the look of the picture, it looks like 2800k would be a good starting point.

BTW, for all, the "tungsten" setting on the cameras is actually pegged for photographic incandescent lighting, which runs cooler than ordinary household incandescent lighting. Photographic tungsten runs 3400K or 3200K, depending on type, while indeed, household tungsten is down around 2800K.

That's what it looks like initially in these shots, but those aren't tungsten lights---those are florescent lights. Some florescent lights are designed to mimic the warmness of household tungsten, but that's not normally what you find in commercial settings such as this. Moreover, even shooting with too high a color temperature setting to produce a warm effect (something I frequently do in my portraits) doesn't produce that kind of image.

It seems to me that something more is going awry here. What do your open daylight images look like?

Here is a daylight picture. Thank you for all the suggestions so far! Being new, this forum is very helpful!

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As per the flash suggestions....I have tried flash and always seem to get overexposed shots with unwanted shadows on indoor shots. I only have the pop up flash on the Canon Rebel Xsi. I'm not sure if I can control it to not make it quite so bright. Thanks again!

Rockindaddy wrote in post #9064945
As per the flash suggestions....I have tried flash and always seem to get overexposed shots with unwanted shadows on indoor shots. I only have the pop up flash on the Canon Rebel Xsi. I'm not sure if I can control it to not make it quite so bright. Thanks again!

This is the problem with any on camera flash especially the pop up type,,unwanted shadows and harsh light..

In your camera's menu there is a flash exposure compensation menu to control the output...Check it out..