* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #863 / Revived #083 on 2024 10 30 *

I would need the raw file to set the white balance and final colours more accurately, not an 8 bit jpeg that has already been convertered from a raw file.

The point I was making is that the colour cast can be removed fairly easily.

I have posted several times in previous threads that the edits I do here using other people's 8 bit jpegs are not intended to be final images but simply examples supporting a point or suggestion I make in that post.

The edited version looks much better on my screen.

That is irrelevant because most people don't do their own home printing but their monitors can obviously still be set up very differently according to if/how they are calibrated and then profiled.

Thank you minniev 🙂

Deleted - duplicate post

So if I send you a raw with nothing close to a neutral gray in it, you can magically produce an accurately color-balanced image!

I believe you but thousands wouldn't ....

The point I am making is that any edit that does this to image data is [poor]:

Therefore your edit is [poor] IMO, irrespective of how it looks on your screen.

That's fine. Your comment is just an opinion which obviously everyone is entitled to have and post.

Some will agree with you and some won't 🙂

I have posted several times in previous threads that the edits I do here using other people's 8 bit jpegs are not intended to be final images but simply examples supporting a point or suggestion I make in that post.

It depends on how close to a neutral grey is close enough for one's purpose for the final image.

For example 220, 221, 219, or even a slightly wider variance, would be near enough as a starting point for my purposes most of the time.

As a formal portrait, I like 3. The light and shade gives 3d modeling without harsh shadows. The movement in brightness across the shoulders from right to left does the same. There's just enough detail on the left shoulder while it gives a transition to the dark background. The sharpness of the eyeglasses and eyebrows impresses and then moves to a more friendly softness. The splayed collar and zip suggest informality while framing the face in a traditional way.
The whole image is gently managed. It is appropriate for the subject's pose. He isn't confronting the camera where a more direct pose might have suited a different treatment.
Re the colours. image 3 doesn't seem to me to have a colour cast. I see the red tone more in the higher iso shots and those where there are large areas of red in the clothing. I also note the NR enhanced info. Are these reprocessed in Topaz which has an "enhanced " control? Alan, if you are going to explore the red tone further, it might be worth looking at those settings.

Not necessarily.

In this one I used evaluative/matrix metering and kept clipped specular highlights to a minimum when I took the photo using the camera's histogram and blinkies as a guide.

Then processed the raw file in ACR and PSE with the Elements+ plugin.

It looks how I want on my screen. YMMV of course.

Yes, but assuming he was shooting raw the best starting point is to get the white balance, and hence skin tones, right when doing the raw conversion. Then look at any other relevant settings in the processing chain.

Circling back, what if the raw has no neutral grays? Would you still need the raw for the purpose of white-balancing?

Well, if there aren't, there soon will be.
Disclaimer. I can't look at this image without seeing it along with a heap of my personal Australian baggage. It will look quite different to others.

We have a Rainbow Lorikeet and a broken branch. The angle of the stump and the jagged points suggest the break was quite violent. The dark shadow (plenty of detail when viewed large) shows that a cavity has been formed. It's a matter of some significance in Australia. That's the way Eucalyptus trees break. The hollows are essential for breeding, especially for parrots and smaller marsupials. Re-afforested areas rarely get to develop nooks and crannies like these before they are harvested. In older timber areas, the timber industry claims it should be able to remove old dead/damaged trees, including in conservation areas.
What I see when I look at this image is a political statement.

I see why you used the 16:9 format.
The highlight is the two central towers and your positioning of them against the pink/red sky. The shape of the sunset just right to pick up the vertical and horizontal spread of the towers. On the left, where the sunset fades, you have another element that keeps the balance - the stack of pipes with the green ends. I also think you got the space around the towers at the top and sides, just right. Less would have looked cramped, more would have taken some of the emphasis from the structures.
I like the concrete channels and the foreground pipe as well. They give lines moving us into the image and opening up the panoramic format. If it had been a relatively featureless foreground or composed to miss these elements, the shot would have been nowhere near as satisfying.
Great photo.

The sky is interesting but the foreground is uninspiring and detracts from the sky for me.

Electrical infrastructure has never really done anything for me.

But since your title suggests the sky is the most important part, a crop and edit something like this works better for me by highlighting the sky more.

Nice subject, scene and colours but is more compelling for me when cropped slightly, shadows lifted a bit and slightly sharpened especially the bird's head.

If you shoot only raw and there is no neutral grey in the scene you can simulate auto white balance to set white balance on the raw data in post with an Average Blur layer and the grey point picker in a Curves or Levels Adjustment layer.

Pretty simple and straight forward.

Or since white balance is not actually applied to the raw data in camera you can use the camera's chosen or user set white balance setting that is stored in a field in the raw's exif to set white balance on the initial rendering of the raw data in the raw converter.

In Adobe Photoshop Elements 24.0 (Windows)

My computer is Adobe-free but but no doubt there is a way ...

Gosh, I never knew that! 😉