Colour disaster - recommendations please

[Susanne]

Hi folks!

In February, before lockdown and stuff, I had the privilege to celebrate my birthday by seeing Sharon Shannon perform in a local pub. I took tons of photos, most not great because - horror - for some reason image stabilisation was switched off on my camera, but I have quite a few that are good enough.
The problem is, this gig was in a small pub where they have a folk club with music gigs weekly on a little stage where the lighting is HORRIBLE. I've learned to manage it, but this particular evening she had a 30th anniversary celebration and they were doing recordings, both video and for a CD. And they had a different kind of lighting, even more horrible. Everything has a yellow-orange-ish tone and I don't know how to save these pictures, unless I choose to do everything in black and white.
I use an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II, I think I used white balance auto because it's usually the setting that causes least problems in this pub, and I always have warm colours off to avoid getting everything orange on indoors photos.
I'm just learning Lightroom and I'm ok with some things but not with colour issues.
What do you recommend I do with this? The first one is the very worst example, the second is more the "norm" in this series.
And please ignore everything else that isn't good.

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[barry]

Hi, do you have the RAW ORF files, or only JPEGs?

 

[ex machina]

Have you tried any of the White Balance settings in LR? Sometimes Auto WB works for me, other times if there's something white in the photo I use the eyedropper tool to set a new white balance, then tweak Temp and Tint as needed.

Another useful tool is the Adjust saturation by dragging in the photo tool in the Saturation tab of the HSL/Color set.

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[Hendrik]

Take the WB eyedropper (red ellipse, right) and drop it on what should be a neutral color. I chose the highlight on the microphone casing (red arrow, left) and, as neutral as it seems, it was clearly quite yellow under the loupe. You can play with other placements to see if there is some more ideal color balance you can achieve easily.

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[Susanne]

Hi, do you have the RAW ORF files, or only JPEGs?

I have everything in RAW but only posted examples here in jpg

 

[Susanne]

Take the WB eyedropper (red ellipse, right) and drop it on what should be a neutral color. I chose the highlight on the microphone casing (red arrow, left) and, as neutral as it seems, it was clearly quite yellow under the loupe. You can play with other placements to see if there is some more ideal color balance you can achieve easily.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! The eyedropper tool was new to me. It worked wonders!!! There are obviously still issues but it's so much easier to work with now. There are probably more options but this seemed like a miracle!!

 

[pdk42]

The lesson is - always shoot raw. That way you can rescue it later. Great shots btw!

 

[Susanne]

The lesson is - always shoot raw. That way you can rescue it later.

Oh yes. I always do.

 

[Susanne]

Another useful tool is the Adjust saturation by dragging in the photo tool in the Saturation tab of the HSL/Color set.

How do I get the HSL/Colors with tabs like that? For me it doesn't look like that. I can pick different colours and then use sliders for saturation, tone, and luminance. (I hope you can ignore that my computer is set to Italian)

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[Hendrik]

Click on TSL. The targeted adjustment tool is in the upper right left corner. Use it in the same way as the WB eyedropper.

 

[Susanne]

Click on TSL. The targeted adjustment tool is in the upper right left corner. Use it in the same way as the WB eyedropper.

Brilliant, thank you!

 

[hoggdoc]

Oh yes. I always do.

Good, but now take some time and dive into LR and learn more about it. This app can be a life saver as you just found out.

 

[phigmov]

FWIW I struggle with gig-lighting, and depending on the shot, come to the realisation there is no shame in converting it to B&W - particularly if you've had to ramp up ISO and have a lot of noise to contend with.

 

[Susanne]

Good, but now take some time and dive into LR and learn more about it. This app can be a life saver as you just found out.

I've been using it for some time but probalby have discovered only fragments of what it can do. Now when the world is on lockdown, Udemy has good prices on their courses so I've bought a LR course I'm going to start soon.

FWIW I struggle with gig-lighting, and depending on the shot, come to the realisation there is no shame in converting it to B&W - particularly if you've had to ramp up ISO and have a lot of noise to contend with.

I converted a few of them to black and white and they look great like that actually!

 

[Stanga]

Photolab is not bad as far as correcting colour issues from stage lighting. I have had good results with it. It took me less than five minute to get acceptable results with the two pictures above.