Color correcting your flash

I spend my vacation in the Philippines during Christmas season and New Year's, so needless to say that I have TONS of family pictures with me. But it only occurred to me just now that all my shots, especially under fluorescent lighting, my pictures have this ugly green tint in them. When I took those photos, I gelled my flash with a green gel under fluorescent lights, and 1/2 CTO on tungsten lights, then set my WB accordingly (Bulb icon for Tungsten, fluorescent for fluorescent). But why, oh why, are my photos looking like that!

Here's a sample:

How do they adjust with software correction?

In a shot like that you should have been able to use the flash for 100% of the shot. You really only need to balance the flash with the ambient when you are dragging the shutter a bit to get some ambient light in the background.

Quick way to see the contribution of flash vs. ambient light is to take two quick shots with the SAME manual settings (f-stop, ISO, shutter speed), one with the flash and one without it. If the no-flash shot is more or less black, you know that there is no ambient light contributing to the scene.

Anyway, for that shot, if you shot raw, just adjust the white balance in your raw converter.

The correct colour correction filter for fluorescents is an FL-D which is 30M (magenta) - which could account for the green cast...............

PaulB wrote in post #9473539
The correct colour correction filter for fluorescents is an FL-D which is 30M (magenta) - which could account for the green cast...............

You mean I used the wrong filter/gel?

try putting both green and cto over each other and set the WB to flouresctent

do you have photoshop? you can create an 'action' to do a color correction on all of your photos. its quite simple.

if you dont have photoshop, im sure GIMP would work too. idk if you can create 'actions' like you can in photoshop though

a quick 30 second attempt at adjusting the color balance:

Canonboi wrote in post #9473567
You mean I used the wrong filter/gel?

Looks like it I'm afraid.

Where did you get the information about using a green filter to balance fluorescents?

-nighthawk- wrote in post #9473679
=-=nighthawk=-;9473679]do you have photoshop? you can create an 'action' to do a color correction on all of your photos. its quite simple.

if you dont have photoshop, im sure GIMP would work too. idk if you can create 'actions' like you can in photoshop though

a quick 30 second attempt at adjusting the color balance:

Yes I do PS. I'm trying to correct the color balance problems in Lightroom first then PS if I have something special to do with the picture further.

PaulB wrote in post #9473698
Looks like it I'm afraid.

Where did you get the information about using a green filter to balance fluorescents?

Here: http://blog.nikonians.​org …lash-filters-or-gels.html

They always say that fluorescent is actually green and not white, so there's that.

Here's a quick correction from my laptop (non-calibrated screen):

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Did you shot them as RAWs?

Did you read my post above? https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=9473099&p​ostcount=3

Maybe other shots have a lot of ambient light mixed in, but in the shot you posted I would think you'd want the flash to provide ALL the illumination. And thus no need for gels.

Canonboi wrote in post #9473738
They always say that fluorescent is actually green and not white, so there's that.

The rule for colour compensation is to use the complimentary colour to that which is causing the cast.
Fluorescents tend to give a green cast as you say but to counter that the complimentary colour needed is magenta.
To counter the warm yellow cast of a tungsten bulb the filter would be blue.

Don't know where that guy in your URL got his ideas from but in this instance he is plain wrong!

What's wrong with AWB on the camera, usually does a good job? And then use Photoshop to correct any small imbalance.

That blogger is a Nikon user, 'nuff said....j/p

richierich1212 wrote in post #9473082
How do they adjust with software correction?

They do just fine. Of course I adjust it depending on how I remember the scene was like. Fluorescent, I like with a little bluish tint. Tungsten shots are fine. Only F is headache.