Motif: Not so happy Lion Cub

Sweet image Mo and I don't know what you're worried about - the colour looks pretty good to me!!

Thank you Carol, but that 's well afer some time in PS, noth kwowing that I doing the right thing ..

Here is the original for comparision:

Still don't see anything wrong with the colour

All it needs IMHO if anything, would be a little more USM to sharpen it but I will leave the techs to those more qualified than me!

Hi Monique

Cute little guys ain't they

I took the liberty of tweaking the picture a little:
I reduced the green channel in curves, adjusted the midtone slider in levels, added a little more contrast and a dose of USM. I may have overdone the colours a little :roll:

Hope this helps

What a precious image. Those cubs are really cute. I like your original presentation-both crop and color. A touch more USM will make it stand out even more. Well done.

Of the three here I far prefer the original - the colors are way more natural, although a bit on the green side, than the tweaked one which is too red (halfway in between would be just right IMO) and I like the tighter comp of the cropped original shot. The only thing that would improve it is a slight braightening and some additional sharpening.

The interaction and cuteness factors are very high

I like your original best also. The sharpness is more of a nit to me than the colour. Adorable interaction and I love your title too. Nice job of cropping the original, really zooms in on what's most important. You sure have some wonderful images from that zoo! Lots of babies!

Hi Monique,

Nice image and I like your crop selection. I agree that the colour is still a little too dark, although I think you have done an admirable job of adjusting it from the original in Photoshop - I don't find it easy to make colour adjustments in Photoshop and there are better programmes out there for doing this. One is Colour Mechanic http://www.colormechanic.com/. This is a sophisticated colour manipulation programme, but is very simple to use. You can learn how to use it in a couple of hours. I have adjusted the colour in your image and re-posted it below (i'm not 100 percent happy with this but it only took 5 seconds - with a little work I could easily improve it and remove the slight green tint).
I have also added a little more unsharp mask across the entire image (amount = 100; radius = 1.0; threshold = 0) and made a selection of each eye using the magic lasso and added a little usm to each eye in turn (40:20:0)

Hope this helps.

Having seen this at home on a calibrated monitor, your original post is actually quite good. The green cast is not quite so noticeable.

Note to self, don't tweak other peoples pictures from work

Thank you all for the effort, and the cubs in different colors

Phil , thanks also for the link to Colour Mechanic , I downloaded it and it seem to be a very interesting system to correct wrong colours, I shall try it further out.

Moca
Great shot and very funny when it popped up. They can play very hard. The easiest way to remove most any color cast created by white balance settings not being exactly what the light was is to set the white and black points.

Open the picture. Control L to open levels. Click on the white eye dropper. The settings need to be 245 for RGB. Click on the black eye dropper and set the settings for 10 for RGB. Click on the options box in the levels area and on the bottom box put in 0.1% for the whites 0.1% clipping for the blacks. At the very bottom of this box select save as defaults. Close the levels box and reopen. Now these are your default settings.

To get the color balance correct, open levels and find the brightest white pixel. To know where this is, move the right slider for the whites to the left while holding down the alt key. The image will go black and the brightest pixel will light up on the leg, usually in the same color as the cast (green here probably). It will be on the right foreleg between the elbow and the wrist. Use control + to zoom in on this area. Use the spacebar and mouse as a hand to move the picture to keep centering this area as you move in. The brightest white spot should be clicked with the white eye dropper. This will remove the majority of the color cast. Then do the same thing with the blacks. Move the left slider for the blacks to the right holding down the alt key. The image will turn white and the darkest pixel will start to light up. Pick the first black one you see. Zoom in as above and click the black eye dropper on the darkest spot. This technique sets white and black point and almost always removes color cast, as long as you pick the correct points. Use curves or midpoint slider then to adjust brightness overall of the picture. Curves gives better control of contrast.

Picking a grey point will do the same, but it is more difficult to accurately pick a gray point. Sometimes autocolor will work, often not.

Many people can balance color by eye, for me I usually have to use the eyedroppers. If there is not set white and black for me to work with I would have to try to do it by eye, curves, or other techniques.. The blackest pixel in your picture, just looking at it will probably be in the right nostril.

Try it once and give a repost and see how it compares to the picture you did by eye..

Very cute shot and hope this PS lesson helps a little and is not too confusing. (Its easier to show then to explain).

Thanks again for posting..

PS Looking at your picture the colors look pretty good on my monitor..

Very cute.

I forgot to give credit to the person that taught me the color balance thing above: Thanks Chas

Thank you Dennis, and Chas, for the very clear explanation, that tip to find the most white and black points is priceless

And here than the final (?) version, on the left the original on the right the corrected version with your instructions.

Looks terrific Monique. way to go!