"It's the wrong colour" Topic

Today I have been trying to take some photos of some minis that I have just finished painting. They're big (40mm) 28mm scale and they have large areas painted purple. I have take 2 lots of photos today, one outside under bright (for the UK)sunlight and the second inside under lamps.
The problem is the purple looks blue.
I've tried adjusting the balance with my photo programme but when I get the purple right the gold metal work looks green. Is there a quick fix, something easy that I can do that will make the purple look purple.

Repaint the purple blue? Maybe it will look purple in your pics :)

But then I would need to paint the blue back to purple again as the minis need to be purple. Too much effort, I'm looking for a quick fix.

Just off the top of my head there are a couple of things to do – all of them within the camera.

Adjust your white balance to outdoors – Outdoor light tends to bluer while indoor lighting tends to go more towards the reds (especially with flourescents)

Change the ASA setting – if its bright, but overcast, go to 200 instead of 100

Fall back and use flash – Assuming that your camera has a macro lens, set it to macro (rose icon, usually) and zoom in until you've maxxed out the optical zoom (as opposed to the digital zoom which will give you poor quality images) There's usually a stop or line between the two. Now, step back until the figure is in focus. Set your flash to its lowest setting – even if you're outdoors. If the flash is still too powerful, but a piece of frosted adhesive tape across it as a diffuser.

Use white piece of paper as a background. If you're using a decent photo program, being able to adjust the entire photo until the background is close to pure white is a lot easier.

Bonus hint: If you've got Photoshop, or something that lets you work in other color modes, switch to CMYK. You'll be able to adjust the color a bit more finely. Be sure to return the color space back to RGB before saving as a .jpg.

Wyatt

I'm not sure how much help I will be but I'll relate my experience and put down some of the "how to take mini picture" links I've gone to.

Hopefully what I'm about to relay isn't just a rehash of what you already know. Well the little bit of experience I have learned from taking pictures with my digital camera is that the kind of light is as important as how much. I used to use reading lamps and because of the incandescent bulb in yellowed the pictures. For the most part flooding with the light is best. I now use halogen lights and the color isn't fouled now. A guy I know uses work lights with clamps to attach to the edge of the table and then has one hanging above. Getting the light coming in from all directions is important too. Why the sun is causing problems the same problem is confusing to me?

link

coolminiornot.com/article

At the bottom of this last link are a bunch of article covering photographing minis, color correction and other stuff about fixing photos.

Hope this help.

CT
cyborgtrucker.blogspot.com

One of the best tips I have picked up for photographing minis (from Hyun's Wee Toy Soldiers) was to use a light tent -- which sounds complex, but I was able to make one simply using a white hankie over some paint bottles.

This is sufficent to difuse the light and makes the results much better.

Thanks for the tips guys. I've just rigged up a light tent with 2 lamps and some white paper, took a photo and it works, the purple is purple. Job done. Thank you, tfc

You could also do the color correction according to a mask (rotoscope it) so that you're only color correcting the purple area without affecting the rest.