How to get rid of orange and green backgrounds with flash

by Stanley LearyOff Camera Flash

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Flash

Have you been getting photos like this with your off-camera flash? The reason for it is you have a mixed lighting situation. The background is tungsten or 3200º Kelvin, and the subject has flash or 5500º Kelvin.

With Lightroom 12.2.1 Release and later, you can use a mask to select the background. The AI in Lightroom does a pretty good job, and then you can color-correct your images this way. However, If you do this on camera, as shown here, it is even faster than having the select images and correct backgrounds. While you can do multiple photos in Lightroom, you still have to take the time to check each one to see if the mask worked. This takes too much time compared to using colored gels to change your flash to match the ambient color temperature.

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Tungsten

Now by doing everything is pretty much the same except for two things that are changed: the flash has an orange gel on it to match the tungsten, and then the white balance for the scene is set to tungsten.

I prefer to put on the orange gel over the flash and then use my ExpoDisc to get a custom white balance by pointing the lens to the flash with the ExpoDisc in front to help me get an accurate skin tone for the subject.

Nikon SB-900 with the gel kit with the flash and the two covers. One at the bottom holds the gels, and the other cover is a diffusion filter. You can use the gels with the diffusion filter as well. There are two green and two orange filters. You can test these, and depending on the lights in the room, one may work better than the other.
The gel slides into the plastic cover, and the hole lines up with a raised piece. When you do, the little white squares will automatically adjust your camera to the correct white balance when on the camera hotshoe.
Here you can see the cover snapped back on the SB-900 with the other gels off to the side in the carrying case.

I prefer not to see the orange and green backgrounds in my photos when using flash. However, if you use the gels, I am showing you here; you will fly through the post-production. Many people try and remove the color shift in the background with post-production, but the time it takes to convert the flash to the correct gel combination is far faster than just color-correcting one image.

Imagine shooting a wedding or an event where you may have hundreds if not thousands of images to color correct if you do not use the gels.

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/80, 28-300mm, White Balance: Flash 

This is with regular flash under fluorescent light. There are more color differences from my experience under fluorescent lights than under tungsten. Just because you see a fluorescent light doesn’t mean it will be green. Some lights are already daylight balanced and will give you proper color with a flash. 

Nikon D4, ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/50, 28-300mm, White Balance: Fluorescent

Here you can see the shift to a better skin tone and background not as green because I used a green gel over the flash.

While this may take 2 – 5 minutes to set up properly over time, you may cut your time to 2 – 3 minutes. You must see this in your overall workflow. 2 – 5 minutes once or 2 – 5 minutes for every photo you shoot to color correct it. It is your choice. Depending on the situation, you might not have time. If you had the time and didn’t do it, you will wish you had during the post.