This past week I’ve witnessed three glorious and deeply colored sunrises. Each one has taken my breath away and I always make the conscious thought that the o-dark-thirty wake up call was well worth it.
However, when I returned home and imported the images into Lightroom some really strange things started to happen with the color. Usually I have a basic import preset that I use that makes exposure adjustments including sharpening and noise reduction and it works quite well. But this time it didn’t work for me at all.
This morning’s sunrise was particularly challenging in getting the color right. In fact, I was struggling in the field while photographing it. My go-to white balance is Shade to bring out the oranges and yellows in the sunrise. But this time that didn’t work. Tried Auto White Balance and that was really bad. Tried Daylight – nope no good. Finally resorted to dialing a custom white-balance number using the “K” Kelvin option and I got remotely close to what it should have looked like.
Once again, when I imported my images into Lightroom tonight the color shifted right in front of my eyes. So I went and removed my import preset and then went to Camera Calibration and changed it from Adobe Standard to Camera Neutral and that got me closer to the original image as it was captured.
I’m still a bit baffled as to why this is happening and wonder if it might be a color space issue selected ‘in-camera.’ So that’ll be the next step to check.
UPDATE: Oh, just realized I had recently changed my LR previews to “Embedded & Sidecar” which uses the camera’s JPEG preview file. So I will change this back to “Minimal” to see if this will stop this odd color shift.
Either way, wow..such amazing sunrises ! Can’t wait for the next one.
Categories: Nature
Emily Carter ~ Nature as Art 
Anyway….too funny that I really do not understand the technicality of this. The end result is magnificent. Question: what app do you use to stamp your name on each shot?
I use Lightroom to export my logo onto all of my images. However, this is an app that you can add words to easily called “WordSwag” I love it.
Thank you, I will check it out.
Wow I really enjoyed your Sunrise / sunset with the wheat or grain stalks. I’ve tried that shot before and never was able to achieve your spectacular composition. Congratulations. My trip to Conowingo from Spokane,Wa yielded one picture in 3 days. However, my daughter loved it and had the image printed on a 30 by 40 canvas so I guess it was worth it.
Hi Jim, I am so sorry that you didn’t get as much as you hoped for at Conowingo. Silly birds, didn’t they know how important it was for you?
Thank you so much for kind words on my image. Luck perhaps?
Color calibration is tricky. Can you also take a Cell phone pic as a test? I hear that reds in the sjy are,a result of pollution.
It was being odd as well in the field with the iPhone Sherry. I’ve heard a mix of thought on this issue, but changing it to Camera neutral helped. Also when I clicked on Auto for exposure that fixed it as well. Oh well. Thanks!
Nice post, Emily.
We really dig the snapshots!
Thank you so much and happy you’re enjoying them.
Gorgeous – truly!
Thank you very much Eliza.
Spectacular! Love the first one most especially.
Amazing sunrises Terri – I keep looking for another one, but no luck yet. Thank you.
Awesome sunrises, beautifully captures in low light conditions.
You are very kind David. Thank you!