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Question

Colours have changed dramatically in Lightroom

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 15, 2020
20 replies
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Hi Guys,

This is my first time posting so apologies if I don't do it correctly. I need help please and any advice would be gratefully received.

I was playing around with in-camera double exposures for a client who does yoga and mindfulness. Last week I made this double exposure of her hand, which was a silhouette and then double exposed it with dew on grass. It's not edited but it gives the idea. I sent the green version to her to check that she likes the direction I am going with this and thats why I still have a low res copy.

My problem is that when I went back into LR Classic this week the colours in the raw file are not the original colours of green grass but funky yellow colours instead. It's not an issue of screen calibration, this is something that has happened to the file. The original in the folder on my Mac still looks fine but when I pulled it into Camera Raw to see if that would make a difference, the colours changed to the funky yellow too.

I'd really appreciate if anyone could advise me on this. I've tried resetting the file in Lr and reimporting it but the same thing happens.

Kind Regards

Karen

New user

This topic has been closed for replies.

Todd Shaner

Legend

Glad to help. Fingers crossed on a quick fix. Just out of curiosity do you use other Canon EOS cameras that support multi-exposure. If so try shooting the same scene and lighting type with one of them, even if it's another 5D MKIII camera body. My EOS 6D does not exhibit the issue so I'm gueesing it's unique to the 5D MKIII, which was the first EOS camera with multi-exposure capabilty.

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks Todd,

I'll try that.

K.

Todd Shaner

Legend

"I can try a few other ones but these are installed on this computer and they render green instead of nuclear yellow. To me it seems Adobe converters misinterpret the white balance on these files for some reason."

Thanks Jao, my apologies. I went back and checked the file in LuminarFlex and it does not exhibit the yellow shift with As Shot WB setting. I also checked Canon Digital Photo Professional app and as expected it shows the proper green rendering same as LuminarFlex. Given your findings with other raw converters it's clear LrC and Camera Raw are not properly interpreting the As Shot WB for certain multi-exposure image files. Since LR 5.7.1 exhibits the issue this appears to be a long standing bug. I searched the LR Classic forum and Photoshop Family feedback forum and found only the below problem report with the same issue using an Olympus camera with multi-exposure. It's two years old with no resolution reported.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/camera-raw-and-dng/camera-rawlightroom-orf-multiexposition-wb/5f5f46154b561a3d4272df2f

Karen, I suggest creating a new problem report at the below link and provide the download link to your multi-exposure CR2 file. Please provide a link in your report to this post for further information and a link back here to that report. We can continue the discussion at the report, which is monitored by Adobe staff. Thank you.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks a million Todd,

I'll do that.

K:)

Just Shoot Me

Legend

I imported your image into LR 5 and the First View was of a Greener image and then it changed to the yellow warmer version.

The first version, greener, is from the Embedded JPG image that is included in every RAW file. that embedded version take on whatever settings you had set in the camera. The yellow version Discards those setting and a Preview is built by Lr using only Raw Data.

In either LR 5 or LrC V10 if you set the WB to Auto you get back the Greener version.

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Just Shoot me,

Thank you for going to the trouble to check this out. Some of the guys had suggested using Auto to bring the colours back from the funky yellow and it does turn it green but it's still not the same as the original and I'd really like to work out how this change happened to teh file so that I can prevent it happening again.

K:)

Just Shoot Me

Legend

I really do suspect it is your camera and the use of the double exposure option in your camera that is doing this and that as other have said Other RAW converter are showing the greener version because Deep Down they are only showing the Embedded JPG version.

Just my option as your CR2 file in LR5, which is 5+ years old, also shows the yellow version with the WB option set to As Shot.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Here is Apple Photos (yes it reads the actual raw data)

This is dcraw/ufraw:

I can try a few other ones but these are installed on this computer and they render green instead of nuclear yellow. To me it seems Adobe converters misinterpret the white balance on these files for some reason.

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

THanks Jao,

That's interesting.

K.

Todd Shaner

Legend

"All other raw converters show it as green at the as shot setting but the latest Lightroom turns it all yellow."

I checked the RS5B0366.CR2 file inside LR 5.7.1, LrC 9.4, and LuminarFlex 1.1 and they render the same as LrC 10.0 when using As Shot 6350 +11 WB. Are you sure you weren't using Embedded Preview with the other raw apps?

"The camera merges the 2 images together so that the underexposed areas of image 1 are filled by parts of image 2 creating a third image."

Yes, I fully understand how in-camera multi-exposure images are created.

Karen, to help us narrow this down did you shoot this multi-exposure image at sunset? I understand something changed and not sure why that happened, but we are here now so let's try to work with what we have. I've also verified that your RS5B0366.CR2 file renders exactly the same (yellow-orange) in LR 5.7.1, LrC 9.4, and LuminarFlex 1.1 as LrC 10.0 when using As Shot 6350 +11 WB. So nothing has changed with the camera profiles. Can you upload another multi-exposure CR2 file that exhibits the issue? Please also tell us what exact lighting conditions it was shot at (Noon Daylight, Sunset, Sunrise, other). I'm sure we can find out what heppened, but the devil is in the details!

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Todd,

The double exposure was shot at around 4pm, which would be a bit early for sunset just yet, but the colours were begininng to saturate in the sky. It was also shot into the sun.

I've gone through the other double exposure examples and they are not at all as badly affected, probably because they are more monochrome using the shapes of leafless trees.

I have other examples of the same hand shot against different grass that are the affected in the same way and producing funky yellow colours?

Jao vdl has posted the raw file I uploaded in Apple Photos and it looks like the original - he says that it reads the actual RAW data.

He is suggesting that the Adobe converters are misinterpreting the white balance on these files for some reason. What is wrecking my head is that they read it correctly last week and I'm trying to understand what has happened in the intervening period to cause this change?

I did play with some presets on the file before the nuclear yellow appeared but then reset all the settings when I didn't like the results, could this have caused the problem?

K:)

GoldingD

Legend

What happens if you process those two images in PS to merge to a double exposure?

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi GoldingD,

I've never done that before as I always do double exposures in-camera, do you mean to blend them by hand or is there a setting in PS that automatically does it?

K:)

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Karen, all you need to do to do is in Lightroom Classic is to select the two images and select "open as layers in Photoshop". Then in Photoshop, you set the blending mode of the top layer to something else than normal. Just experiment to what seems to work nicest but most like the traditional double exposure is "screen". You can get many different effects that are much more versatile than doing it in camera. There is a tutorial here that goes much further than generally needed: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/double-exposure-effect.html to see what you can accomplish. Many times you can just set the blending mode to screen or lighten, play with the opacity of the top layer and be done with it.

GoldingD

Legend

Bringing the image into ACR (via PS) I see the same issue. So it is in the Camera RAW code.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

This is very strange. All other raw converters show it as green at the as shot setting but the latest Lightroom turns it all yellow. Did you update Lightroom to the latest version in between the color change? Perhaps there was a change to the profiles for this camera in between that only shows up for double exposures and therefore nobody noticed as they are quite rare. I usually do these things in Photoshop.

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Jao,

I didn't update Lightroom until after this change happened, in the hope the update would fix it.

K:)

Todd Shaner

Legend

"Both were outdoors with the Flash WB setting on a Canon 5D Mk3, I use the flash setting even when I don't use flash."

The Flash WB color temperature is 6314 for your camera, which is 6350 As Shot inside LrC. My guess is you shot with the sun setting or rising, which has a color temperature of 3000-4000. Not a big deal since the in-camera WB setting has no affect on the raw file image data. You just need to be aware of the WB conditions and correct it inside LrC. You could use Auto WB setting in-camera, which will get you closer to the correct settings inside LrC with its As Shot setting. Either way you're going to need to manually adjust the WB settings. Shooting a ColorChecker or White Balance card in the scene will help in finding the correct settings, but shots like this will look better if you don't fully correct the WB. In the case here leaving it a bit warmer (yellow-orange).

https://www.watchprosite.com/photography/color-temperature-at-sunrise-and-sunset--/1278.1126771.8596471/

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Todd,

Thanks for your response, much appreciated.

I'm not really worried about the in-camera WB on this occasion as the problem didn't occur in camera, it occured in Lightroom. Please let me explain - I don't know if you shoot in-camera double exposures but basically you shoot one image - in this case an under exposed photo of the hand:

Then, using Live View, you take another image (in this case the grass) and the double exposure is image 1 overlaid on image 2.

This is the image of the Grass:

The camera merges the 2 images together so that the underexposed areas of image 1 are filled by parts of image 2 creating a third image - the image below is SOOC and exported directly from Lightroom last week and these are the colours I would like to keep but at the time I only exported a low res version to show to a client as a proof.

This week, I went back into my files in Lightroom and that same file (above) had changed to a different colour (Please find current file below) and I don't know how or why this happened and even if I reset all of the settings or if I re-import the file to Lightroom I can't get the original colors back.

The best suggestion I have had so far is to change the WB on the current file to Auto in Lightroom and this turns it fully Green. I would prefer to find out what happened to my file (and all the other double exposure files) in lightroom so that I can prevent it happening again.

Kind Regards

Karen

Todd Shaner

Legend

"Last week I made this double exposure of her hand, which was a silhouette and then double exposed it with dew on grass."

It appears you shot the hand picture with tungsten lighting and the grass picture with daylight. Since this is a double expsoure it appears the 2nd expsoure WB settings (Daylight) were recorded in the CR2 file As Shot settings. Here's the in-camera embedded JPEG image next to LrC image with WB adjusted. It looks better, but not exactly the same as the in-camera JPEG. I suggest in the future to use the same lighting source type for both exposures, which should fix the issue.

EDIT: If you select the Camera Standard Profile with the below WB settings (3340, +37) it looks very close to the in-camera JPEG.

K

KKMMTTTAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Todd,

Thanks a million for your post. Here's the thing, I did shoot both of the images with the same light setting. Both were outdoors with the Flash WB setting on a Canon 5D Mk3, I use the flash setting even when I don't use flash. The change of colour only happened on the files this week in Lightroom.

I imported the file last week, did no adjustments to it and then exported it as a low res JPEG to send on to the client, with some other double exposures, to get her opinion on the direction I was going with these shots. The file exported last week was as I shot it i.e the colour of grass in sunlight. The hand shot was a silhouette against the sun and was shot in a field also.

My problem is that this has also happened to other double exposures that I made.

Kind Regards

Karen

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