Thread: Correcting color shifts shooting under fluorescent in Lightroom

This problem has been plaguing me for years, and it finally dawned on me the other day how to fix these pretty easily. The issue is that when you're working under fluorescent lighting fixtures using iron ballasts, shooting about a certain shutterspeed (around 1/120th) can result in seeing a color and exposure shift in the image since the shutter is opening/closing midway through the fluorescent lamps cycle. Typically what happens is that after you WB the image you're either left with a cyan or magenta shift part way through the image. My solution to this is to use Lightroom's graduated filter tool to put in a cyan filter.

For the image below, what I did was drag a filter about halfway through the image (starting from the bottom, dragging to the top) click on the "color" section and then dialing in H:160 degrees, S:15%. From there I increased the exposure by .31. Looks much better, I think.

Very nice. I like this alot.

Looks way better. Nice write-up, Sam. I'm going to try playing with the "Promote to Article" thing. I think this is a good candidate. I'll probably **** it up.

EDIT: Doesn't look like we have that turned on.

Thanks man, I was so happy to figure this one out.

It's funny though - I was all stoked on this and then started processing an order from an event I shot a couple years ago where they had bright green ring gating around the box, which in conjunction with the usual crappy lighting made it utter WB hell. There's basically no way to make the shot "right" without a lot of minute hand editing. Check this **** out - here's the shot with a "basic" fluorescent WB:



Here's the best I've been able to manage so far, still pretty terrible...

Have you tried a second step to just desaturate that red color a bit afterwards?

It still looks worlds better, even with the cast afterwards.

Yeah, I tried a bunch of things. It's a continual 6 in one hand, half dozen in another situation. The thing is though, I just don't charge enough to spend a lot of time on these shots. What I should have done was just not shoot at the box. Unfortunately I think I shot quite a few shots down there. It's a bummer, because that's a pretty nice shot otherwise.

Good stuff, Sam. That second example really shows how well this works.

the "color" filter is pretty handy. i've used it to correct for other WB issues too.

Great writeup Sam.

Originally Posted by Stime187

I'm going to try playing with the "Promote to Article" thing. I think this is a good candidate. I'll probably **** it up.

EDIT: Doesn't look like we have that turned on.

I just did it. What happened when you clicked the link? And Sam, let me know if this isn't OK.

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So the "Article" and forum comments aren't shared? Lame. Don't need another thing to keep track of.

Originally Posted by Stime187

...

OK, so it's only setup for admins right now.

Originally Posted by Idjiit

So the "Article" and forum comments aren't shared? Lame. Don't need another thing to keep track of.

my thoughts exactly. It's got a link to here, but it's small and at the bottom (no one will see it/use it). I can edit your "post" when I promote it, so I could add in a link to here that's big/bold. I can also turn off comments on that which would basically force people to find their way here.

cool! this is really helpful!

Sam, I just turned off comments and changed it to a link.

Thanks Ben.