lighting/white balance crit

[littleny]

Hi guys, these two shots were rejected for poor lighting/possible white balance.
im new to studio lighting..and actually they look pretty good to me and my untrained eye.
can you tell me what i should be looking at that im missing..
thanks

[markrhiggins]

First impression - both look a little flat. Whites are not white and a bit of magenta tint

[littleny]

thanks marc..
im having hellva time understanding monitor calibration.
wondering if these shots, particularly the muffin shot, appears on the bright side..dark side or middle of the road

[luissantos84]

thanks marc..
im having hellva time understanding monitor calibration.
wondering if these shots, particularly the muffin shot, appears on the bright side..dark side or middle of the road

it has a little of everything but maybe a lot more on the left side because of the background, I would pull the exposure a little little up, the tea cup isn�t far from some 255 highlights.. regarding wb I guess you are using some flash right? so bring it to around 5600k depending your equipment.. they look fine here, in my opinion the reviewer just didnt enjoy the picture and click any reason..

FORGET (don�t know nothing)

[Elenathewise]

I definitely see magenta tint in both images. Simple "auto color" in Photoshop may just fix that. I would invest in a monitor with color calibration if you're serious about stock photography.

[littleny]

i actually went out an bought the spyder 3 pro yesterday but using it on my glossy imac monitor seems to be an issue.. also luminance in the 24in imac ( 3years old) is ridiculously high. 

[SNP]

both are flat. contrast needs a bump, and they need to be brightened. definitely a lot of magenta going on. they just don't pop. nice composition though. I like how you staged the muffin shot....looks like a Victorian tea party table setting.....cute

[RacePhoto]

i actually went out an bought the spyder 3 pro yesterday but using it on my glossy imac monitor seems to be an issue.. also luminance in the 24in imac ( 3years old) is ridiculously high. 

Something is strange, what Elena and Mark wrote, and even if more polite and saying subtle magenta tint, it's an obvious magenta tint. There's something wrong and your white balance is off. Once you get it, you'll be happy and what you see will be what you really get.

Did you set the Spider for the right kind of display? Macs are supposed to be better than PCs, out of the box.

I have the Huey pro and love it. Some people swear by it, some swear at it. Some like the Spider... I never owned one. But in the end, if you get it set right, you'll be very, very happy and looking back at your old photos, you'll be surprised to see what you couldn't see before.

[littleny]

Macs are supposed to be better than PCs, out of the box

the 24" imac from a few years ago is notorious for brightness issues; and i dont mean backlighting/dimming.  the magenta is obvious on my laptops..not on the spyder calibrated mac though.  im reading reports all over the net that spyder doesnt work well with these glossy monitors.  i think the magenta comes from the colors cast in my house;  lots of burgandy and warm browns.   I thought AWB would compensate for it. but apparently not.

[Stu49]

If you're using flash ??  why not set WB to flash !?  why AWB ?? 

[leaf]

You could always try out the colorchecker passport 

[luissantos84]

curious I haven�t got any calibration system or whatever.. I really trust my laptop

[RacePhoto]

curious I haven�t got any calibration system or whatever.. I really trust my laptop

Try this on your laptop, under the same conditions that you edit your images for submission. My monitor shows #1 and I can see the difference. Most people won't see any change until 3 or 4. I suspect people here will do better than that, most people means, people on their home computer who do not critically view images.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm

Monitor Black Point Check

[luissantos84]

curious I haven�t got any calibration system or whatever.. I really trust my laptop

Try this on your laptop, under the same conditions that you edit your images for submission. My monitor shows #1 and I can see the difference. Most people won't see any change until 3 or 4. I suspect people here will do better than that, most people means, people on their home computer who do not critically view images.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm

Monitor Black Point Check

nice stuff I see it on the 2