Color casts are quite possibly one of the most annoying and frustrating issues photographers encounter during post processing, but unfortunately sometimes they cannot be avoided. In other cases photographers simply do not know how to correct this issue in camera.
Often caused by certain types of light or filters, color casts can be a royal pain in the butt to remove and many try and fail to successfully do so.
Enter Jimmy McIntyre’s latest video tutorial where he shows how to remove color casts with the click of a button.
As you can see in the video, Jimmy’s color cast was caused by a neutral density filter. In general, cheap and powerful ND filters tend to cause strong color casts.
In this case the filter caused a strong blue cast, and Jimmy rightfully suggests that you take a test shot when using filters to see if a manual white balance adjustment is in order to save extra work in post.
If you didn’t do so for whatever reason, simply follow this step in Photoshop:
Image -> Adjustments -> Match Color…
Once in the Match Color menu simply check the ‘Neutralize’ box and you’re done!
Jimmy compares the color-corrected image to an image that was taken without the filter and while they are not identical color-wise, this quick and easy fix did an amazing job. This is definitely more efficient than manually correcting via the white balance tool.
In order to ensure that your color casts have been properly corrected you will want a calibrated monitor. Check out this hands-on review of the Datacolor Spyder 5 Elite to see how that can be achieved.
