Indoor Lighting Question

[Green Horn]

Ok, it seems that more often than not I get an orangie look to my indoor shots. This is with the external flash and pointed towards the ceiling. I'm not sure how I'm doing this. Is it mixing with the ceiling lights? I also tried a pic with the flash straight on, and obviously it looks blown out. Here's a couple of pics for you all to look at and try to help me figure out what I need to do differently. Nevermind the OOF...I know about that. LOL And as always...thanks for your help. :cool:

 

[Green Horn]

The first one seems grainy to me too, which I'm guessing means I'm not getting enough light??? If so, then pointing the flash downward obviously gives you the results in the second pic.

 

[Okiewan]

Two problems with the first one...
1) It's under exposed which is...
2) making the white balance look worse than it is.

What color is the ceiling?
Even the color on the walls will get picked-up when bouncing flash.
If you are setting white balance for flash on the camera, don't bother, IMHO, Auto always works better.

Shooting in RAW will really help here, as you can adjust white balance after the shot.

 

[Green Horn]

The ceiling is pure white. I'll check my settings on the flash. Not sure where the wife has it. If I shoot in RAW, what program do I use to open the RAW file so that I can adjust "white balance"?

Some of my other ceiling color in other parts of the house is antique white...not sure if that will make a difference. And what of vaulted ceilings? Anything to be concerned with when shooting in a vaulted room?

If I gave you a penny for every question I asked, you'd be a rich man. ;)

 

[Okiewan]

Photoshop. If you have an old version, you can download Adobe Camera Raw (it's like a plug-in) for free at Adobe. http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

or

RawShooter Essentials for free (bottom of the page): http://www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshooter.asp

 

[Green Horn]

I will download both and play around with them to see which one I like. I'm currently running PS 5.0 FWIW.

I'm also going to keep playing with the flash, because it's bugging the crap outta me that I can't get the indoor shots the way I want them. I may just take a buttload of pics tonight around the house and try all kinds of stuff with the flash. Just to see what it gets me. Thanks again, man.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Greenie - If you get a big sheet of white poster board you can shoot pictures with it sitting in the background and use it to zero in on white balance and the effects of light in the room you are in. It also works great for bouncing flash off and softenting up the way the light fills the scene. It's easy if you if you set it up just outside of the shot or right behind you and bounce the flash backwards.

If you really want to go for it get a neutral gray card (see link) and sit it off to the side in your pics for a while. You'll learn a ton about different light color temps (aka white balance) and how they influence a shot. The gray card is cheap and it's a good learning tool when you are shooting RAW.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009R838/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_1_img/102-4621658-1049747?ie=UTF8

Dropping the color temp of the first pic just a little bit makes a big difference. As Bob pointed out if this were done in RAW you could get it dead on.

 

[Green Horn]

Yeah, but it's a terrible pic to start with. It's grainy as hell. I just clicked off about a half dozen pics inside, and I couldn't get one of them to have that orange effect. LOL Have NO idea what I'm doing different. I'm gonna have to take some more in my daughters room tomorrow and see what I get. The Adobe RAW program won't work with my version of PS, so I downloaded the RAWShooter program. Playing around with it now to see how it works. The Color Temp and Exposure Compensation tools are friggin' cool as hell.

 

[Green Horn]

Wife will kill me if I post any pics of her right now. LOL Here's an outdoor shot from a little while ago... Played around with it in RAWShooter just for fun.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Yeah, but it's a terrible pic to start with. It's grainy as hell.

Even I know how to fix that. :)

First a couple of light passes through Noise Ninja.

 

[Green Horn]

Holy crap! You sho do! Can I just send you all gazillion of my under exposed images to fix? LOL

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Then a little crop, and it's not such a bad picture afterall. :cool:

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Noise Ninja is a GREAT TOOL, and can really help salvage stuff when you shoot High ISO shots or low light stuff.

 

[Green Horn]

Dammit! I gotta have 7.0 or newer in PS for Noise Ninja. That's it then...I got some things to take care of around here. :)

 

[Green Horn]

Yeah I was going to crop the wires hanging out of the wall and stuff...if I could ever get it looking the way you got it. :)

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Noise Ninja can be purchased as a combo package that gets you a PS plug-in and a stand-alone PC based app that you can run pics through as a last step in the process.

 

[Green Horn]

OMG! I don't think I'll ever shoot in unRAW again. LOL RAWShooter rocks! The downside is that I'm gonna have to get a little more than 512mb of memory if I want to keep doing the RAW stuff. :laugh: I haven't played with the Noise Ninja yet. But I figure that if I can learn how to shoot, I shouldn't need it, right? ;)

 

[Rich Rohrich]

I haven't played with the Noise Ninja yet. But I figure that if I can learn how to shoot, I shouldn't need it, right? ;)

Sometimes the light just isn't there, so you have to crank up the ISO and the noise along with it. A good noise reduction tool can save a lot of pictures like that. If you shoot in an Auto-ISO mode and a fixed shutter speed you'll find you need more often.