Please help me find a solution...

[picture.perfect.view]

I shot a wedding last weekend and something horrible is wrong with the reception pictures. The color is orangish red, and there is black dots all on people's skin. This has never happened before. I don't know if its a flash issue, or if something was wrong with my camera. I always use the same settings. I did however change my ISO to 1400 during part of the reception because another photographer told me it would help me take photos of the white cake without a flash on, but even with the ISO still set, when I used my flash, this happened. I'm attaching photos for reference.



I use a Rebel XTI, I keep it on P setting and mess with the exposure, but for weddings I use a Speedlite 430ex

[Daniel Bates]

The black dots are from image noise. This is a direct result of using a high ISO, which is a requirement for photography without flash in low-light conditions such as the one you were in. The white balance does not appear to be set, resulting in the orange colour cast over the image.

I would suggest shooting in RAW mode. This will allow you to set the most optimal white balance during your post-processing workflow.

[picture.perfect.view]

I think I have the white balance set to auto. And the high ISO would explain it now. Thanks for such a quick reply! Now I know better next time than to listen to someone without asking more questions!

[carrbowl]

You could still run this thru a program to reduce the noise...it would help clean them up.

[Redneck]

I don't really know the Rebel XTI, but since it probably is not a highend camera, I wouldn't trust it to handle that high ISO settings very well. I'd probably shoot at ISO 800 max.

[CaptainTom]

For some reason I just LOVE this post.....

OP posted
I use a Rebel XTI, I keep it on P setting and mess with the exposure, but for weddings I use a Speedlite 430ex

[J Eddington]

I know that camera quite well and my advise is to NEVER take it above ISO 400, unless you want digital noise. Learn you camera. It will make all the difference in your photos.

[CincoJoe]

white balance is off no doubt, shoot raw and adjust afterwards. As for noise, yes you will have noise at 1400 on a Xti but nothing you can't clean up some in post.

[The Philos]

If you have Photoshop you can open the jpeg as an ACR file and make a white balance adjustment - clean up noise and sharpen just a hair. Skin tones are still a good bit varied, but I didn't bother to do any local adjustments.

[picture.perfect.view]

oh my goodness, you just made my day!!!! You are amazing! I have Photoshop CS3, could you please email me the steps I need to take to make my photos clean up this way? I definitely regret listening to that guy and using a high ISO. :( I have always done well with my camera and never had a problem until I listened to him.

[The Philos]

Instead of just using open I used:

1.) File>Open As... and changed the type to Camera Raw
2.) It will then open the JPEG in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog
3.) I used the Auto White Balance feature of the dialog to adjust the color balance.
4.) I used Noiseware to lower the noise (I used the Night Shot preset)
5.) Ran Nik Sharpner Pro 3 on the default settings and lowered the opacity of the Sharpened layer to ~50%.

[picture.perfect.view]

Thank you! You just became my hero :) Can you tell this has been driving me nuts?! I would love to have all the high end equipment and editing software so this problem would never happen, but until I graduate college, I have to utilize what I have.

[ldelacruz]

Originally Posted by ThePhilosopher

If you have Photoshop you can open the jpeg as an ACR file and make a white balance adjustment - clean up noise and sharpen just a hair. Skin tones are still a good bit varied, but I didn't bother to do any local adjustments.

Just curious to see if you think this will print OK? I am thinking it looks good on the web but a print might be different. What do you think?

[The Philos]

I think so, it doesn't artifact terribly; but it would of course be better to start with a pretty RAW file. :)

ThePhilosopher added 1 Minutes and 28 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by picture.perfect.view

Thank you! You just became my hero :) Can you tell this has been driving me nuts?! I would love to have all the high end equipment and editing software so this problem would never happen, but until I graduate college, I have to utilize what I have.

Learn to shoot manual efficiently and you'll have fewer mishaps once it's second nature. I guess I take for granted things like dedicated Custom White Balance Buttons and such.

[texkam]

For some reason I just LOVE this post.....

I hear you Tom.