Strong green or magenta tone
Datacolor expert Oliver Mews gives tips on color management.
Today: Using a neutral gray reference to avoid color cast.
Your camera often does a good job rendering color under most lighting, but have you ever noticed that an image has a strong green or magenta cast that is not faithful to the original scene? This is a white balance issue.
Editing applications provide the ability to use an eye-dropper tool to select a portion of an image that is intended to be neutral gray which shifts color temperature and tint accordingly.
The problem is you don’t always know what should be neutral. The simplest and most accurate way to adjust white balance is to use a neutral gray reference. Intentionally placing a gray reference like the SpyderCUBE in a photograph provides a test image to adjust white balance for other images in the same lighting.
Place the SpyderCUBE in the lighting of your photograph’s subject so the two gray references are facing the camera. Take an image, remove the SpyderCUBE from the scene and continue shooting.
When you edit the images under the lighting with the SpyderCUBE, use the white balance eye-dropper to click on the brighter of the two grays to neutralize the effect that the lighting has on your subject. Synchronize these settings to all the images captured in this lighting for a natural and pleasing look.