# Latest effort



## penmaker73 (Jul 13, 2012)

Here is my latest turn.  I took the photo with  a lightbox and a white background, yet the background comes out colored How do I resolve this?


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## Drstrangefart (Jul 13, 2012)

Looks like a lighting adjustment from here. Maybe put a white filter over the light source?


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## penmaker73 (Jul 13, 2012)

I build the box with white tissue paper and have tried several different lighting arrangements.  Could it be the camera?


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## Drstrangefart (Jul 13, 2012)

I'm not a camera guy, probably not the best source of information there. However, if the light source generates any yellow light, it will definitely reflect off the white surface and tint everything. If you use regular shop lights, have you replaced the old incandescent bulbs with flourescents? I bet that'll make a difference.


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## penmaker73 (Jul 13, 2012)

I have tried that,  however, the color of the background changes almost with every photo.


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## Drstrangefart (Jul 13, 2012)

I'm out of ideas. I'm sure someone else with experience here will chime in pretty shortly.


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## penmaker73 (Jul 13, 2012)

Thanks, by the way, I even changed to a cloth filter and it did not work.


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## Andrew_K99 (Jul 13, 2012)

If all else fails go to the library  http://content.penturners.org/library/techniques/pen_photography.pdf

AK


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## chriselle (Jul 13, 2012)

Read up on how to manually set your white balance.


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## Ruby pen turning (Jul 13, 2012)

I am no expert but you need to use custom setting on your camera and probably shutter speed, so you can get more light with a slightly longer exposure. you should also download a free photo editing program. I use Picasa my wife uses erfanview or something like that.


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## philb (Jul 13, 2012)

Manual adjust the white-balance in Photoshop or similar, pretty hard to take a photo and get a pure white background.
There's a great guide somewhere in the Photography forum!


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## Sylvanite (Jul 13, 2012)

Like this?






If so, the best answer is (as chriselle said) to manually set the white balance and exposure in your camera.  It can be corrected to some extent in post-processing.  Check out http://www.penturners.org/forum/f24/photoshop-tip-3-correcting-white-balance-77424/ for more information.

I hope that helps,
Eric


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## azamiryou (Jul 13, 2012)

Although you can do some correction in software post-processing, for the best results you want to start with the best data - in other words, get the camera to take the best possible picture.

I see two issues with the photo in the original post: color balance and exposure. If these are set to "auto", your camera will almost always do the wrong thing. This is because it will make adjustments to try to get the photo to be neutral gray on average. For example, with a white background, most of the picture looks "too bright" to the camera, so it reduces the exposure to darken it.

So what you need to do is manually set the color balance and exposure, rather than allowing the camera to do it automatically. 

Check out the library article Andrew posted, and also this thread about white balance: http://www.penturners.org/forum/f24/its-not-easy-being-green-blue-95957/


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