Cali Kid Corals

Alve's tank today, thanks to BAR!

I have a 99 Fatboy that I bought new in August of 1998. After having it for over 10 years I was ready for some changes so I am installing a 200 rear tire, custom rear struttless fender, old style solo seat, side mount license plate and taillight, custom paint job... If it comes out as I envision it I think it will look great. Now I have to see if it really will look great once it is finished ;D
 
I finally got the nerves to try out my Olympus Stylus 1030SW under water. I don't like how the pictures came out, way too much blue in it. Anyone can give me some advice on how to fix this? I don't have photoshop but have The Gimp (sorry, was free download) and tried adjusting colors but somehow I can not get even close to making it look more real. Here are some examples, I did not change anything on the colors, that is how they were taken with the camera:

YellowGreenStag.jpg


Tri-Color.jpg


GreenSlimer.jpg


GreenMillie.jpg


Purpleprostrata.jpg


BlueMilli.jpg


This is Mr. Ugly's Red Prostrata that I have a picture of on a previous page of my tank tread. There shouldn't be any blue in it and this is how the picture came out:
RedProstrata-1.jpg
 
Jeremy, I will try playing around with the white balance and try the cloudy day setting, never thought about that. Do you use the super macro with LED or without?

Iani, that is way better! When I tried changing color balances I couldn't get it close at all. Thank you!
 
Does the camera actually have a manual white balance? I've found on my olympus (not underwater though) that the "auto" white balance (i.e. it should white balance each photo??? I guess??) doesn't do dick. However if I manually have it adjust the white balance for the tank, bingo it works great (a little too good IMO since the blues go away and it looks like a shot under 10kK bulbs instead).
 
[quote author=alve link=topic=3453.msg70986#msg70986 date=1229891753]
Jeremy, I will try playing around with the white balance and try the cloudy day setting, never thought about that. Do you use the super macro with LED or without?

[/quote]

I use super macro without the LED, and the normal macro as well depending on how far away I'm shooting.

Mike, there are 7 different white balance settings, I just scroll through them and find what looks the most natural, with my tank the cloudy day setting looks the most natural.
 
Gotcha Jeremy, wasn't aware that it had "presets".

I was going to say that prostrada looks a bit bleached out too, but then I took a shot of mine, and there's quite a bit of "white" in it as well.
 
[quote author=alve link=topic=3453.msg70986#msg70986 date=1229891753]
Iani, that is way better! When I tried changing color balances I couldn't get it close at all. Thank you!
[/quote]

No problem. I used just two functions in photoshop.
1) Image-adjustment-color balance-moved the slider from the middle closer to yellow.
2) Image-adjustment-hue/saturation-selected blue and moved the saturation slider to the left.
 
Since I don't have photoshop on this comp, I thought I'd try the software I do have available: GIMP (which you already have :))
1) Auto white balance
2) Master saturation to the left
3) Blue saturation a little to the left

Results are pretty similar with little effort on both programs
 
Cool, thanks for the help everyone! I will be playing around with color adjusting later on.

I changed the white blance to cloudy as you adviced Jeremy and quickly took a picture of the prostrata without turning off the pumps, just to see the difference. Much better! This is without adjusting anything:

RedProstrata1221.jpg
 
Looks good man! I've noticed if I take the picture wide then crop and zoom it helps with the contrast issues. So basically camera set to regular macro and pic taken at ~10"-12".
 
I tried out "cloudy" WB on my camera (rebel) and it works pretty darn well. It has a tad less red then what my tank has, but other than that, it is really close.
 
Alright, time for an update ;D

Mr. Ugly's Red Prostrata:
1.jpg


Tyree Bali Tri-Color:
4.jpg


Marshall Island's Tri-Color:
6.jpg


Jeremy's Aqua Delight and Monti Vietnamesis:
7.jpg


Monti Spongodes, unknown SPS and Jeremy's Acro Austera:
9.jpg
 
Thanks Perry, my colors were all very faded and after advice from Bryan I started feeding more (roti feast and oyster feast) and I decided to try with adding amino acids. I have been doing this for about 3-4 weeks now and they are coloring up really nice. I don't know if it is the feeding or the amino acids that did it.
The only problem I have with the amino acids is that I think it is causing my sand to get coated with brown algae. Nothing grows on the rocks, only like a brown mat on the sand if I don't stir the top layer every few days. I read somewhere on RC that amino acids can cause this. I dose way less then recommended, 5 drops every night.
 
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