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The
culprit in this image of Oliver and James Phelps (respectively, George and Fred) appears to be flash photography.
Oliver's face is a bit washed out, and their hair has streaks of green! Green? In red hair? This isn't the
photographer's fault, though... too many
strobes and flash bulbs produce a greenish tint on whatever happens to be nearby. In most photos, the culprit is florescent
lighting, but in this case, it's the strobe light on the camera.
The above image explains what I'm talking about.
If you just glance at the original photo, the hair looks red relative to the other colors in the image. However, this
blowup of James' hair clearly shows olive green streaks in it. There is no way, no how, that green streaks belong in
red hair in a photo. Abstract art, yes. Photos, no. Florescent lighting is the most common cause of this
discoloration, but it is often caused by the flash from the camera. This isn't the photographer's fault. He or
she only has light control inside a studio. My complaint is with the people who make strobes and flashbulbs.
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Three steps were taken to correct the image:
1) gamma correction; ambient light was slightly
darkened to restore the "natural" light conditions of the time/place, given that the picture was taken on a rainy day;
2) contrast correction to add depth, which
also lightened up the gamma-darkened highlights; and
3) color correction. The green hair is
now red, and the skin tones are a more normal color.
x
x
OK... so you get the green hair thing.
So what else does a "Photo Auror" do? Just about any kind of "rescue"
work on images. For instance, a couple of months ago, I managed to successfully lift some images from CBBC's interview of James and Oliver from June 14, 2004. But the images are in totally horrible
condition. Part of it is interference that looks as if it might be deliberate, and then there are other things such as strange
colors strobing through and the usual problems with video images looking very flat when rendered to stills. Click below to
see what I'm going on about.
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