How to capture smoke sky color

[caprichoso]

I took some  shots of the spectacular Mars sky that we saw a couple of days ago in California.  The camera didn't know what was going on, so it removed most of that spectacular color.  I was trying to restore it in lightroom but I am not that familiar with the color tools.

This first shot balanced on the indoor colors, so the outside colors which can see on the balony walls are approximately correct:

But this shot taken outdoors removed  the color from the wall boards.  The pain color on both sides are the same but  show up as different, and without the color cast:

The sky should look something like this:

[Conrad C]

If the camera was set to automatic white balance, it would try to make neutral surfaces neutral, which is not right if the real ambient color is not neutral. So first try changing the white balance. If White Balance says As Shot, set it to Daylight as a starting point. If that is not enough, change White Balance to make the overall colors warmer. If that isn’t enough then you can try other controls, but setting White Balance manually might do it alone.

In the past few days, there have been a number of articles written about this. These are just two:

Here’s Why Your Phone Can’t Capture California’s Apocalypse Sky

Your Phone Wasn’t Built for the Apocalypse - Why the orange sky looks gray

[caprichoso]

Thanks.  I was aware of the color balance problem as I took the shots.  Had no white balance control available.  Naively I used a color checker in some shots thinking that that would help.  Adjusting according to the color checker just made more of the color go away.

Since this was a one day event (hopefully!) the question is whether there is a way to adjust the pictures (as above) that have already been taken.

[Conrad C]

You might not have had a white balance control available at the time, so you should now try the White Balance option in Lightroom Classic. That option is for this kind of adjusting color balance after the shot. It will work best if you shot raw files, but it could still help if it’s a JPEG or other non-raw image.

It may not get you all the way there, but as I said, it’s the first step before trying other color controls.

[GoldingD]

In LrC, in the WB, you could use the picker tool, and use that white edging on the building.

Then use a adjustment brush, selecting the sky, and warm it up.