Looking for blue- cool lighting

[Anub1s]

Hopefully I can get an answer to this...

Well, this is my first post here (I'm new) so sorry if this is a repetitive question. But I was wondering what kind of light I could get that would enable me to achieve a cool lighting effect in a photo rather than a warm lighting effect. At the moment I use a smith vector 600 watt 700 sg light that I bought back when I was in High School. The following picture is an example of the kind of lighting that I get in pictures (with my light). I'm really sick of the warm look I get when using my light.

(btw, just to share- I'm really hoping looking to improve with photography (as I'm sure most people here do as well). It's a hobby of mine that I plan to expand on. Although I am currently an Animation student- which may explain my lack of knowledge on photography, the terms used, and so forth)

[another view]

Welcome - are you shooting film or digital?

[Rere15]

Hi,
Really like your photo. This is exactly what I get with my new 640 watt monolight kit. I recieved many replies (under color cast with my studio light kit) but haven't tried any of them yet.
I'm also wondering if the modeling lights might somehow give the magenta cast.
For a short-term remedy, you can get it out with a click in Photoshop and have your cool color. But, of course this isn't the answer. I was told that the combination of ambient lighting and studio flash will do this. But why when I use my speedlights on a bracket (Nikon SB800) on my camera, instead of the studio lights, do I not get the warm color?
Rere

[Asylum Steve]

First of all, welcome to the site and the forum. For what it's worth, I think your shot looks great as is, but as one who gives much of my work cool tones, I can understand you wanting to get that effect.

Whether you're shooting film or digtital, there are many ways to manipulate the color temperature of your lights and scene. You can filter the light, you can filter the lens. With film you can mismatch the film color balance with the light color balance. You can cross-process the film.

With digital, the choices multiply dramatically. The most obvious is to mismatch the White Balance in the camera to achieve a cool toned image. Or, there's photoshop...

I'll have to disagree a bit with Rere15 and say I see nothing wrong with using photoshop as your color adjustment tool for any image anytime. That's what it's for.

To me, it makes much more sense to concentrate on lighting ratios, tonality, exposure, and subject posing and emotion in your studio session, then worry about precise color balance in post-production.

If you shoot RAW, you can make your WB adjustments in the ps converter and not have to make any more edits. Or you can use any of a dozen color editing tools and filters and create something like what I did here.

I simply added a blue layer above the image, changed the layer blend mode to color, then changed the layer opacity to 50%. It took me less than 30 seconds...

[Anub1s]

Thanks everyone for the help. For those who asked, I use a digital camera.

Before coming to this board I had previously tried to mend my orange tones with photoshop but I think there were several occurances during which it just didn't seem work well with the image. But thank you for the suggestion! I'll keep it on hand for whenever it does seem like it would be the best possible solution.

So far from trying things out I would say that messing with the white balance has been the most useful thing. But I can't be too sure till I take the time to set my lights up, and so forth.

-I had previously thought that there were lights which exist that emit blue toned or rather very white lighting but I guess I was mistaken?

Thank you for all the help.

[Trevor Ash]

Well, I don't know a lot about the equipment out there but have you investigated whether you can buy repacement bulbs for your lights that are coolor in temperature than the ones already in it?

Also, Is it possible that the warmth is coming from something other than the lights? In other words, your camera might have a natural warmth to it or perhaps the light is reflecting and casting warmth.

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but you can also throw some gel filters over your lights to cool the color.

I think getting creative with the white balance is a good suggestion for you depending on how much control the camera gives you and how subtle you need the changes to be.

[another view]

So far from trying things out I would say that messing with the white balance has been the most useful thing.

That's why I asked. I believe it's always best to get the shot as close as possible at time of capture, and then "tweaking" it in Photoshop if necessary. If you can set a custom white balance, that would be best - for every time you shoot. Second best option would be to use an incandescent setting in the camera.

There are a lot of ways to affect the look of the end product, but they all have down sides. Custom WB takes a little time to do but it's worth it. Gels would definately work, but they will cut the light output. You could also filter the lens with an 80A but once again, you'll need more exposure (wider aperture, longer shutter speed or higher ISO) to counteract the amount of light you're losing with the filter.

[Sebastian]

I agree with what is posted above, gels and lens filters will cut light, though not by much. You could get different light bulbs, but why bother? You will have to post-process an image after taking it, no matter what, so you might as well integrate the color adjustment into that already existing workflow instead of adding more things to buy and keep track of. White balance changes will have the same effect, though I would personally shoot with a neutral white balance in-camera and post-process. There are times a wrong white balance will clip one color channel or more, and make adjusting in post rather difficult. Shoot RAW if you can for the widest latitude if you intend to make a habit of this.

Almost forgot, the reason you might have had trouble with Photoshop could be that you simply don't know it all that well yet. Pick up a good book, one geared towards photogs, and learn the ins and outs of it.

Nice shot, keep it up and good luck.