How can I intentionally create a strong red color cast in a photo?
Asked 1/20/2017
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I want to make images with a heavy red cast, similar to photos shot under red ambient lighting. If I change white balance alone, my results either look washed out or become neutralized when the WB is set correctly. Is there a good camera setting or technique for creating this effect, and how much depends on the lighting itself?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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To create an image with a strong color cast you need at least two things:
- Light that includes the color you desire as a component of the portion of the visible spectrum included in the light illuminating your scene. The more the light illuminating the scene is the color you want, the easier it makes it.
- The ability to eliminate light that is not the color you desire the image to be. Again, the less the light illuminating the scene includes portions of the visible spectrum you don't want in the color of your image, the easier it makes it.
The easiest way to do it is to light the scene so that it looks to your eye like you want the image to look, shoot raw, and then adjust color temperature and tint in post processing.
Another way to do it is to set the camera's color temperature to around 5200K (daylight), place a red filter in front of the lens, and shoot the picture. Again, saving the raw data will give you much more flexibility in editing to fine tune the color to exactly what you want. You can also shoot the scene and then add the color filter in post if you are using an application with the capability to add color filters.
If you only light a scene with a very narrow spectrum lighting that does not include the color you want it will be near impossible to produce the result you want. Your only option at that point is to edit the image in monochrome and then apply a colored filter to the whole thing in post processing.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
9y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
White balance alone usually won’t create a convincing deep-red look unless the light hitting the scene already contains a lot of red and little competing light.
To get this effect:
- Use lighting that is strongly red, or a scene already lit with red light.
- Minimize other light sources, especially neutral or mixed lighting, so they don’t cancel the effect.
- Pay attention to contrast and brightness; a nearly monochrome red image needs strong light/dark separation or it can look flat and washed out.
- Shoot RAW, then fine-tune color temperature and tint in post for the final look.
You can also force a red cast in-camera by using a custom white balance from a cyan/blue card. Since cyan is opposite red, the camera compensates by adding red to a normally lit scene.
So the method is not just finding a white-balance “sweet spot.” The lighting is the main factor; white balance and post-processing are used to enhance or preserve the red cast.
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