Digital Outback Photo - Photography using Digital SLRs

 

Workflow Technique #002

"Removing Blue Shadow Casts"

by Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller
 

When we came back from Grand Canyon most of our sunset/sunrise photos had a natural blue shadow cast and also very deep shadows. It is no secret that for selective color corrections Color Mechanic Pro is our tool of choice (featured also in our e-booklets).

Color Mechanic is now also our best tool to remove shadow casts. Here is how we work.
 


Pictographs at the Grand Canyon Desert View Watchtower
 
This photo has a clear unpleasant blue shadow cast. We use Color Mechanic in 16bit mode to handle this problem.
 


Color Mechanic before/after view
 
We click into the blue shadow and correct the cast with the following setting inside the color cube.
 
 
 
Now our photo is much better but has now still some magenta cast.
 



Removing the magenta cast
 
With these two little steps we get the final improved photo.
 


Final version
 
Here is a different example from our canyon series.
 



Blue Shadow cast removal
 
Using this technique the shadows get much more transparent. On the other side you lose a bit of contrast and here some of our S-Curves help.
 
We hope you also find this a very powerful technique.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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