wedding dress whites...opinions wanted

[janetg]

hi there - going to cross post this - hope that's ok.

for white balance for wedding dresses...

say you have some shots - taken outside - dusk...

to me - there is naturally a blue-ish cast to anything white - ie, shadows are blue-ish? right?

so if you are white balancing a photos, outside, near dusk, do you keep a small blueish tint? or go ahead and hit the eye dropper to make it white white?

thanks for the replies!

janet

[Jezebel]

i think that keeping the entire image in tune with the lighting/environment is the better way to go. if you make it white-white when it should realistically have a bluish cast then it can look over processed and unnatural. of course it would be easier to give an opinion by seeing the image in question. if for some reason the dress looks crazy blue then maybe some more tweakage is in order :D

[Duffy Pratt]

You could have anything from blue to orangish/red bias on parts of the dress, depending on how much it fell into light or shadow. The problem is that the camera "sees" the cold and warm colors much better than our eyes do. People tend to see, and remember, the dress as white. This is part of our eyes natural ability to wipe out color casts.

The solution will depend on the picture. It can vary from keeping the shadows blue, or warming up the entire picture (to turn the shadows blue and the highlights a warm shade), or to use some manipulation to reduce/eliminate the color shifts in the dress, or anything in between.

I have two white dogs, so I run into this problem all the time when shooting near sunset. I haven't found a single solution that will work for every shot. And, BTW, I think its alot easier to accept blue shading in a dress than it is to accept blue fur.

Duffy