How do I get rid of the blue overtones?

[PaulWilliamson]

Hi,

It appears that white balance is off on my "new" Sony A7iii camera and that some outdoor pictures have a blue tone.  I am guessing that is what the problem is.

Any way, I would like to fix some pictures that I already took and get rid of the blueness it put on my pictures.  I have not tried to fix the RAW format ones yet.

See how blue the limbs and snow on the pine tree are, and the sky and mountain?  Can I restore the photo to what it really looked that afternoon with the sun at my back?

Thanks!

I downsized the original jpg using Aff Photo, no adjustments.

[Ldina]

@PaulWilliamson Paul, there are dozens of tools to choose from to do what you want. There are also many possible interpretations of this pretty scene.  I have no idea how 'warm' or 'cool' the light looked that day. Snow, in particular, often has a decided bluish cast in the shadows and is much warmer, sometimes even yellowish in direct sunlight. 

I took a screenshot of the image you posted and made a few adjustments in AP v2.4.0. My interpretation may be 'over-the-top', or too flat...I wasn't there.  I used the Inpainting Brush on a new pixel layer to remove a few dust-bunnies from the sky. On top of that a Curves adjustment to adjust tonality and remove some of the bluishness, Shadows/Highlight (mainly for some detail in the dark evergreen trees), Selective color and HSL to do some more color work, and a little Unsharp Mask. The layer stack is shown below. The results would be far better starting from a RAW image instead of a screenshot. What you are looking for may be very different, but this gives you an idea of some tools you can use. I uploaded the final AfPhoto file, complete with layers. Hope this is helpful. 

Winter Scene.afphoto

[PaulWilliamson]

1 hour ago, Ldina said:

Paul, there are dozens of tools to choose from to do what you want. There are also many possible interpretations of this pretty scene.  I have no idea how 'warm' or 'cool' the light looked that day. Snow, in particular, often has a decided bluish cast in the shadows and is much warmer, sometimes even yellowish in direct sunlight. 

I don't remember either Ldina!  I can always go back on another sunny day in the afternoon and take some notes. I just take pictures for fun so I will not remember to write every important thing to look for.

Thanks for your help! I learned a lot!  I need to look at the RAW file and go from there.  And read my manual! :-)}

You found that smudge!!  It has been driving myself and a professional friend of mine crazy! We have looked everywhere for it!  Hmmmm.... where is the rascal?

[Ldina]

@PaulWilliamson Paul, there are plenty of tools you can use, and unlimited interpretations. Depends on what you want, and what "evokes" the feeling you had while there, or the impression you choose to evoke. Accuracy isn't always the issue, so notes may or may not be of that much help. If you edit a photo that you want to reflect "reality", try to avoid "impossible colors" that are just blatantly wrong, e.g., bluish hair, greenish skin, reddish shadows, that sort of thing (unless, of course, you are purposely trying to create something that departs from reality). For example, here's another rendition of your scene, which is warmer, greener, has a lighter background for the sky and mountains...neither rendition is likely "accurate", but there shouldn't be anything there that a viewer would see as totally "wrong". You get to choose these or other interpretations. 

The tools are definitely there. Affinity has some great tutorials in the Forums section of this website. Glad the afPhoto file was of some help. Happy hunting. 

[PaulWilliamson]

39 minutes ago, Ldina said:

If you edit a photo that you want to reflect "reality", try to avoid "impossible colors" that are just blatantly wrong, e.g., bluish hair, greenish skin, reddish shadow

I thought the 1970s were back here in the US! 🙂  Thanks again!  I am going to play around with stuff. I don't like the brownish/amberish effect though.

[firstdefence]

I would go with a more natural white balance adjustment of around 20-30%.

[Alfred]

6 hours ago, Ldina said:

I took a screenshot of the image you posted

Did you have a particular reason to take a screenshot instead of simply downloading the image?

59 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I would go with a more natural white balance adjustment of around 20-30%.

The sky looks good, but isn’t that supposed to be snow in the foreground? It looks like sand in your version!

[joe_l]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

The sky looks good, but isn’t that supposed to be snow in the foreground? It looks like sand in your version!

A consequence of the climate change perhaps? 🤔

[Ldina]

5 hours ago, Alfred said:

Did you have a particular reason to take a screenshot instead of simply downloading the image?

@Alfred Haha...Good point! 😀

[thomaso]

13 hours ago, PaulWilliamson said:

It appears that white balance is off

How about just adjusting the white balance then? … and possibly save a satisfying result as a custom preset?
BTW: snow in the shadow is normally blueish: it reflects the (blue) sky. PS: the sun was at your right, not behind you 😎

[firstdefence]

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

Did you have a particular reason to take a screenshot instead of simply downloading the image?

The sky looks good, but isn’t that supposed to be snow in the foreground? It looks like sand in your version!

Without knowing the time of day one assumed it was near the end of the day so a bit of an orange cast would be acceptable.

[firstdefence]

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

Did you have a particular reason to take a screenshot instead of simply downloading the image?

The screenshot is of Affinity Photo and it's settings, the image was downloaded and opened in Affinity Photo  ya crazy galoot 

[Alfred]

10 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

The screenshot is of Affinity Photo and it's settings, the image was downloaded and opened in Affinity Photo  ya crazy galoot 

I wasn’t asking you about the screenshot, Dex, I was asking @Ldina. Ya crazy galoot! 

[firstdefence]

4 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I wasn’t asking you about the screenshot, Dex, I was asking @Ldina. Ya crazy galoot! 

There's a whole lot of galootin going off tonight lol!

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, firstdefence said:

There's a whole lot of galootin going off tonight lol!

There’s a whole galoot of galootin’ going on, don’t ya mean?

[David in Яuislip]

I don't get along with the white balance adjustment layer using the picker so I placed an Info Sampler on some snow in the foreground then used a Curves layer and adjusted the blue and green values to match the red which produced a #dedede grey at that point. It's not bad, it brings out the vegetation but nowhere near as good as using a raw. 

[filoplume]

On 3/5/2024 at 5:55 AM, Ldina said:

Did you have a particular reason to take a screenshot instead of simply downloading the image?

Do you want the RAW file or original (6000x4000) or the Affinity Photo format?  Here is the original, but in Affinity Photo format. It is pretty big.

I guess my brain is sometimes stuck in the 24K modem days.

 

DSC00072.afphoto

[filoplume]

On 3/5/2024 at 6:17 AM, thomaso said:

BTW: snow in the shadow is normally blueish: it reflects the (blue) sky. PS: the sun was at your right, not behind you

Yes, the sun was off to my right! 🙂

[filoplume]

On 3/5/2024 at 6:17 AM, thomaso said:

How about just adjusting the white balance then? … and possibly save a satisfying result as a custom preset?

Okay, snow on pine tree is still blue-ish but I understand now as there are other pictures I took at other times of the day in different locations that also had a blue hue.  I just need to find a similarity.

What does saving the preset do?

Thanks

[filoplume]

On 3/5/2024 at 3:16 PM, David in Яuislip said:

I don't get along with the white balance adjustment layer using the picker so I placed an Info Sampler on some snow in the foreground then used a Curves layer and adjusted the blue and green values to match the red which produced a #dedede grey at that point. It's not bad, it brings out the vegetation but nowhere near as good as using a raw. 

Oh boy,  Sounds like something NASA would do 🙂

A friend told me that about a picture I took saying "Even NASA couldn't fix it!".  I assumed he was talking about the landing on the moon or some conspiracy like that. 🙂

[thomaso]

2 minutes ago, filoplume said:

What does saving the preset do?

Once saved you can recall a custom adjustment preset + apply it with 1 click.

[filoplume]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

Once saved you can recall a custom adjustment preset + apply it with 1 click.

Okay -assuming it worked <g>

[smadell]

With photos like this, I’ve found (usually)that getting rid of a color cast using the “Divide Fill” method works best. Sometimes, a simple White Balance adjustment just doesn’t seem to cooperate. I downloaded your image (in the first post) and put a white Fill layer above it, setting the Blend mode to Divide. I clicked on an area that should be white (you’ll see I placed a small red circle on an area of snow in the mountains). I’ve posted the result below - the change is subtle, but definitely a bit less blue. Also, here’s a link to a good YouTube video by Robin Whalley that goes over the technique.

 

 

[loukash]

My favorite "quick'n'dirty" tool for this kind of tweaks since my early Shotophop days decades ago has always been Color Balance:

Also keep in mind that it's a three-in-one tool: Highlights, Midtones, Shadows. Very flexible.

[filoplume]

On 3/5/2024 at 3:16 PM, David in Яuislip said:

It's not bad, it brings out the vegetation but nowhere near as good as using a raw. 

Looks good to me though.