Les Jones

Photos > Photo-editing with Picasa: Fixing Orange Cast Under Fluorescent Light

BEFORE: Orange cast from a combination of fluorescent lights and an LCD projector.

After: light adjusted and color cast fixed with the Saturation tool

This picture started out as a train wreck. The overhead fluorescent lighting was bad enough, but it was made worse by the fact that a ceiling-mounted LCD projector was shining a PowerPoint slide on the subjects. That was my idea: I wanted the company's logo (which I've cropped out of the photo) above them. The PowerPoint slide had a light blue background. You can see letters from the slide projecting on several peoples' faces. Probably not one of my better notions.

Before I took this photo I had taken some test shots. After previewing them on the camera's LCD I knew I had problems. I tried changing the camera's white balance from Auto to Fluorescent. When that didn't help I shot a custom white balance off of someone's white shirt. Still no good. I finally went back to Auto and hoped I could fix it in software.

I fiddled around with usual things I fiddle around with in Picasa, like Auto Contrast. When I tried the Saturation command under the Effects tab it made the orange much worse, which gave me an idea. I moved the Saturation slider to the left of the midpoint. Bingo! That removed the orange. Now I use that trick to fix the orange cast I get on photos I take under fluorescent light.

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