A stream

Wanted to have a go at some slow shutter work so bought a neutral density filter ND8. Drove to what was supposed to be a large waterfall, didn't quite get there, maybe next time. Got some shots of the stream though. The filter gave a color cast to the shots, corrected by altering the tint in photoshop. Not sure if I corrected it though, am slightly color blind.
Exposures of around 6 seconds for these, shot in the Peak District nr woodhead pass.




Peak District Stream by SFB579 , on Flickr



Stream in woodland by SFB579 , on Flickr



Woodland stream by SFB579 , on Flickr

The second shot seems a bit red to me ?

Forgot to say it was a cheap ND filter, would a more expensive one lead to less of a color cast in the images?

Some cheap ones do tend towards a purple/mauve colour cast, which appears to be the case with yours. Unfortunately the pp has only reduced the colour cast, not eliminated it, but in the process taken the colour out of the greens and browns.

Worth living with though for a little while until you decide if ND's are for you, then splash the cash on Lee perhaps, which are supposed to be first class and colour cast free.

Nice shots by the way, although for me the jury is still out on 'smoothed' water.

I don't know if its the filter necessarily? It should be neutral of course. On the surface it looks like a white balance issue, too much magenta. If these were JPEGs what were the colour-fine tune settings? Or maybe AWB has overcompensated with the green cast that would be preset in this location?

There's one tool I use in PS Elements which is effective at sorting out this sort of thing - its called 'Correct Clour for Skin Tones'. Its very versatile - click on a grey area - initially with these shots you'll get an immediate shift towards green, probably too much, but then you fine tune it with a bit of magenta and also 'Tan' and master temp slider. Give it a go if you have the program, I'm sure it'll work well here.

Perhaps all the shots would benefit from a reduction in midtone and highlight brightness also - a lot of the foliage in the sunlight is overexposed I think. But nice viewpoints and compositions!

Providing the scene is pretty average, this works well in PS Elements .....

* Open the image, select and copy to clipboard
* File/New/Image From Clipboard
* For the new image, Filter/Blur/Average (or whatever does the same in your editor of choice)
* Click on the original copy
* Enhance/Adjust Lighting/Levels then select the middle (grey) dropper tool
* Click once in the second averaged copy

The original copy should now have the colour cast removed. It is a lot easier than it looks and only takes a few seconds.

Processed as above, your second image looks like this .... not perfect, but quite a bit better.



Andrew

Thanks Andrew that is a lot better.

In lightroom

Decrease exposure by 2/3rds of a stop
Using eyedropper. select the bottom right blurred water highlight
Job done




Still some strange colours going on though

I'd spend some money on something better Steve, or you will just get fustrated.

If I wanted a 3 stop ND filter, I'd use the dark half of my 0.9 hard grad from my Hitech filter kit. Obviously it can be used as a conventional grad too, so has two used

this is my take on it ,used colour correction sliders to remove magenta then desaturated green,yellow and blue slightly all in cs5




i think quite a few use the HiTech filters from a company called Format i believe, a bit cheaper than Lee

Sadly, I don't think any of them look quite right; there's no substitute for a decent ND filter that doesn't require such drastic PP work. Despite the magenta tinge I think Stephen's originals are the best looking, but if they had been shot with a more neutral filter they would be outstanding.

Regards
David

Yes I think your right David. What do you think of this shot below.



four falls by SFB579 , on Flickr

I agree with David. The odd colours (although I am even more colour blind) and the highlights in the water are tricky to deal with. I think the third image would be a real standout in black and white, which nicely circumvents the colour cast.

Yes Stephen, that last one is much, much better; more natural-looking colours. There is still some light colour cast but it is minimal and doesn't detract from the overall appearance which is very attractive. The highlights could do with toning down a little, but I don't think this is filter related.

I think it would be worth you investing in a more neutral filter as you clearly have a measure of skill for taking this type of shot.

Regards
David

Also, do you use the Histogram on your Preview screen when reviewing the image you've just taken? I would suggest to use it as its very helpful for assessing the correct exposure to set. I would think a correct histogram for these scenes would show a larger rise of tones in the mid to lower half of the graph, with a small amount at the extremes of shadow and highlights.


I really like the last shot you just put on, but again, I feel it could do with at least 0.5 to 1 stops less exposure.