I can't the white balance right in some night time shots in artificial lighting, the photos either have too much of a yellow cast or if I get rid of that the colours don't like right with a dark green looking more like a navy blue. I've uploaded two sample raw files here:
WB Test Photos Shared with Dropbox www.dropbox.com
To show what colour the body of the locomotives should look like these are a couple of photos taken during the day in similar positions:
I've assumed I'm at the mercy of the platform lighting but thought I'd see if it's possible to get them looking better if anyone fancies having a go or can suggest some WB values.
You can't use the headlight area as it's too bright (Lightroom gives an error saying as much) and it's also the wrong colour since it's not source of lighting in the scene. If I choose the platform edge which is painted white the platform looks ok but the whole scene looks far too blue, I can move the WB slider up a bit which looks better but the body of the locomotive is a dark navy blue which looks wrong.
I realise with four light sources in the scene (the locomotive's external lights, its internal cabin light, the platform lighting and the bright flood light behind it) I'm not going to be able to get them all looking correct but I'd like to get the loco looking better.
Looking at the daylight photos, there appears to be a hazard sticker on the front of the loco with a white background - that might give a decent starting point.
I had a quick go in Lightroom. I used auto white balance, then switched to Tungsten which gave identical results, reducing the yellow cast to a more natural amount. I am assuming they are tungsten lights so they are going to give a slight yellow cast which is how they should look.
I also went into HSL and changed the hue of the yellow and orange a bit to reduce it further still but too much will affect other areas of the images, unless you use a local adjustment.
I can’t access my computer at the mo but the only way to get correct colour accuracy in scenarios like this imo is to use grey cards, those colour passport thingies or setting a custom WB in camera before shooting. In situations like this trying to fix WB and colours in post is a PITA
Tricky puzzle. I've had a play with the example pictures and I'm getting reasonable results with Kelvin adjusted to approx 1500 and a small tint adjustment. This is lower than the 2000K limit in LR so you will likely need Photoshop or something else. This main adjustment corrects for the dominant light source, the lights above the platforms. After that I tried fine tuning with radial masks from the moon and other lights to correct for those too.
I'm a bit puzzled by that, are the WB values equivalent? Even at 2000 with some tint adjustment it looks far too blue, this is the result of using the WB dropper on the white platform paint which sets the WB to minimum in LR:
Using the overhead wire warning symbol on the locmotive body is a bit higher at around 2250:
And this is something in between those two and still too blue:
Originally I thought the second photo was too yellow but now I'm looking at it (which I've spent too much time doing now!) I think it is probably the best of the three even though the colours on the locomotive body aren't right.
Actually the more I look into this it seems specifically an issue with blue, this locomotive is in Arriva blue and should look like this:
At night however it's a very different shade of blue but the rest of the platform looks about right:
Similarly the loco on the right is in BR blue which should be a much duller colour rather than vivid blue whereas the one in the main part of the picture in BR green looks correct:
2-12-2019 06:18:51
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