These changes should, theoretically, render a good result when applied to the images that you need to correct (the moon shots).īy changes I mean, for example, + 200 points in color temperature, 7 points towards green in green/magenta, etc.Īn editor like Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw is very helpful for this as it allows you to copy and paste the color settings of the sample shot to the moon shots. My idea is that if you take another picture with the very same settings (particularly white balance), same lens, as your moon shots and then evaluate it straight out of the camera, using a correctly calibrated monitor, you should be able to work out what changes the image needs to better represent the actual scene. That shift would be, in any case, the best compromise in which the designers settled for you particular make and model (and firmware) of camera. In principle, "daylight" setting assumes "white" light (uniform intensity for all light frequencies across visible spectrum) is illuminating the scene, so it should not shift color in any way, except to compensate design limitations in the sensor. It does that in any WB setting, using different "shift values" for each light source.
The camera software somewhat applies a correction profile to reproduce color as best as possible. JPEG would work too, to a lesser extent.įor simplicity lets say that every sensor has it's own deviation from "correct" color, due mainly to design, materials and manufacture. If the camera was effectively in daylight white balance at the time the shots where taken, then you can deduce the color shift that happened, and apply it's reverse to the image. And shoot raw, so you can try other settings later. If you don't want that, then either use the appropriate preset for the predominant lighting - in which case whites should come out close to neutral - or try auto WB (or a custom WB from a white/neutral card).īut if you're taking shots of strongly coloured subjects that don't average out to gray - like neon signs - then I'd go with one of the presets. If you've got a lot of light pollution, some folk recommend using the tungsten setting to tone down the light pollution background a bit (or use a light pollution reduction filter, but with the move away from yellow sodium streetlights to broad spectrum LEDs, they may not be as effective as they used to be, depending on your local light pollution mix.įor terrestrial scenes, it depends on the lighting - daylight white balance gives a warmer look to tungsten lights, the same way shooting daylight balanced slide film did. If you're doing astrophotography, I'd usually use the daylight setting. (Raw, so you can try other settings later if you don't like the daylight result).Īfter all, the moon is basically a gray rock in bright sunlight :). The simplest solution I've found is to shoot raw with daylight white balance, rather than auto. So, the argument that you can't objectively match colors is BS. Response to the "color is subjective" non-answers: devices are sold which allows hardware stores to match the paint so when people repaint their walls the color matches with the old color. I guess one strategy would be to use a telescope on the object, then hold the spectrometer up to the eyepiece. It will not measure light coming from a specific point in the field of view. Spectrometers are supposed to measure colors, but the spectrometer I have only measures incident ambient light.
For example, neon lights, reflected light from the moon or stars, fireflies, aquatic bioluminescence, etc.
How do they get the color correct? We can imagine the same problem for any light source at night. For example, stars like Betelgeuse have a red color.
This same problem, I imagine, affects astrophotographers. I was trying to get a shot of a red moon, but the color was coming out wrong obviously due to a white balance problem.Īdjusting the white balance after the fact was not an option because I would have nothing to compare to and its not like I am going to remember the exact shade of red.