Central Messenia Region (mavic mini)

Remember when I told you about forgetting the White Balance between locations?  Well, here we have some images with the White Balance preset to a manual setting far irrelevant to the correct setting.  In addition, you will see the effect of a polarized filter and how it makes the colors pop and the contrast to give the 3D look we all admire in similar images.

 The following images are two creative examples of how to make the image pop and convert your ignorant mistake into a beautiful image.   The first image is clearly a "hot" balanced image with accent on the red and orange colors trying to convey a sense of the sun setting a very humid day of the summer.  In this case the original white balance set in the drone was all the way to the right, which means a really HOT White Balance.  I weighted the slider to the left, but not as much as to destroy the sunset impression.  Then I raised the Tint slider to improve my Greens and set the balance to a neutral-looking tinted setting.

 

The next image is a more difficult case.  It was shot with the White Balance set to full HOT (meaning RED and ORANGE at maximum), but it was afternoon right after the sun had set on a less humid, blue-to-grey general color.  In this case I lowered the temperature value to reveal the grey street (as a guide) and then set the Tint value to balance the green trees, while fine tuning the temperature to balance the red dirt.  As this was not enough, I reduced the saturation just a bit to make the image less pronounced and I still feel a bit of contrast raise would complete the processing.

But when you realize your mistakes and find a way to avoid all the stupid things that would ruin your photos, that look in your face says it all!  Sure I remembered to set the White Balance to Auto (and left it there for good), sure I had the sun behind the drone's camera and I was making sure I had strong signal when handling the drone, but it was that little piece of dark glass in front of the camera that made the difference to my eyes.

 

The polarizing glass that removed all the glare and brought real contrast to the scene making post processing a delight as my eyes rolled over each photo I handled.  I was amazed by the crispiness of the details, the tolerance of the colors and the depth of the contrast I could bring to my images.  I tried not to be carried away by what I was seeing, but I felt like I saw things I would never see otherwise and in the best possible form, color and shape.

And here is what bad White Balance can do to ruin your videos.  Keep in mind I did my best, but it is almost impossible to correct this mistake in Premiere.

Best viewed in 4K