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I took photos at a wedding reception. The event took place in a room where two adjacent walls were interior walls with no windows, and the other two walls faced the exterior of the building and let in a lot of natural light through large windows. The chandeliers in the facility put out a heavy yellow cast. The walls are a curious color to begin with, almost a pewter color, sort of a greenish gray with a slight tan tint in it. In some shots, the wall goes from light tan to dark grey. This is insane. What can we do with environments like this? To the human eye, this place has grey walls 24/7. In photos, the walls look absurd. It's bad enough removing the yellow cast from whatever strange bulbs they used in their ceiling fixtures, but what can I do about the walls in the shots where it looks like some kind of circus paint job, spanning a gradient from light tan to dark gunmetal gray along the same vast expanse of background?

Pittsburgh DBA
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    I'm not certain it's a duplicate, but you didn't mention if you've looked at related question so that's why I suggest it. Feel free to edit your question to indicate what you've looked in so far and why it didn't help. – Saaru Lindestøkke Nov 25 '21 at 15:24
  • @SaaruLindestøkke Yes, that's exactly the scenario! Thank you. I tried finding related posts but didn't have much luck. Natural light + Yellow chandelier = nightmare. Thanks! – Pittsburgh DBA Nov 25 '21 at 16:03
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    Just one more thing I noticed in your question. You should probably turn off auto white balance. – Rafael Nov 25 '21 at 16:58
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    @Rafael It probably doesn't matter at all what the in-camera WB is set to. With this kind of lighting scenario you're going to need to shoot raw anyway, and so WB can be set to anything you want after the fact. – Michael C Nov 25 '21 at 23:14
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    In addition to what is covered in the suggested duplicate, you can also try to shoot around the problem as much as possible by recognizing such hazards when shooting and trying to avoid shooting in that direction unless there's no other angle from which to take the shot. Don't forget to also check out the "Linked" and "Related" questions listed at the duplicate question. – Michael C Nov 25 '21 at 23:16
  • @Rafael I shoot Raw anyway, thank you. So at least we have a chance. This lighting situation is truly "the nightmare" as referenced in the other post. It's sunlight + tungsten + fluoroscent with a massive yellow cast. It's really bad in that room. Not to mention the pewter paint is very odd. Desaturating the entire yellow spectrum works quite well, but the wall colors are the real issue, since they suffer from mixed lighting the worst. I may just edit for skin tones and let the walls do whatever they will. – Pittsburgh DBA Nov 26 '21 at 17:17
  • @MichaelC Good tip. Thank you. I love to shoot natural light, but I think for this room I will resort to flash and/or strobes from now on. – Pittsburgh DBA Nov 26 '21 at 17:18
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    you can always turn the worst ones into black and white; saved me a few important wedding shots before, and if they really want a specific shot in color you can spend the time manually fixing it. – dandavis Nov 27 '21 at 03:33
  • @dandavis Yeah, that's covered pretty well in the duplicate. – Michael C Nov 27 '21 at 13:30

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