# How to "equalize" the tones of 51 photos?



## Gerardo_G (Jan 6, 2013)

*Hi,
*
I'm not an expert in photography, but since I love origami I care about improving the pictures of my figures. Besides, I love to make photo-diagrams, in other words, a PDF file with pictures of each step to make the figure.

I precisely have right now 51 photos regarding each step of a particular figure. Since there are certain variations in the light between each picture, the tones are slightly altered as you pass from one photo to the next. The paper is red and the background yellow.

I wanna find out the fastest way to "equalize" (I don't know if that's the proper term) the tones of the paper and the tones of the background between the 51 pictures, in order to achieve a certain level of uniformity between the whole set of photos.

I usually use Camera Raw for editing various photos at the same time, but I'm not sure if it's the adequate software for what I want to achieve.

What might be the easiest and fastest way to "equalize" the tones of all the photos? What program should I use?

Thanks in advance !


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 8, 2013)

Can someone help me please with some ideas?

Thank you!


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 8, 2013)

You can use camera raw, but it'll be tedious. Lightroom can do it in one sweep. 

best way to do it:

have a consistent daylight balanced light source and manually set your white balance before shooting whatever it is you're doing. Color would have been consistent for all 51 pictures and you could have avoided this problem altogether.


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 10, 2013)

Sw1tchFX said:


> You can use camera raw, but it'll be tedious. Lightroom can do it in one sweep.
> 
> best way to do it:
> 
> have a consistent daylight balanced light source and manually set your white balance before shooting whatever it is you're doing. Color would have been consistent for all 51 pictures and you could have avoided this problem altogether.



Thanks, I try but I don't have the best equipment for it. I'm using a very simple home-made lightbox but with a single desk lamp as light source, and a compact digital camera. It's too automatic, but I do lock the autoexposure to try to get some consistency between the shots. But I move the angle of the light in some photos in order to cast the right shadows so that the origami folders can easily tell the form the paper has taken. Even if I don't move the angle of the light, It seems to me that the brightness level increases for the simple fact that the folded paper shrinks as you fold it between steps. Being so, I feel I have to respond by changing the shutter speed in order to get that consistency between photos :???:. I try, but I just don't seem to get it, specially this time!

Would you tell me a little more about Lightroom Sw1tchFX? What option would you use to get the consistency in the tones between all the 51 pictures?


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## KmH (Jan 10, 2013)

Sw1tchFX said:


> You can use camera raw, but it'll be tedious. Lightroom can do it in one sweep.


Actually, so can Camera Raw.


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## Forkie (Jan 10, 2013)

KmH said:


> Sw1tchFX said:
> 
> 
> > You can use camera raw, but it'll be tedious. Lightroom can do it in one sweep.
> ...



Camera Raw has a sync function?  They hid that button well!  Where is it?


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## KmH (Jan 10, 2013)

Yes. Camera Raw has a Sync function.

Open multiple images so Camera Raw has a use for the Sync function. They will all be on the left side of the Camera Raw page. Look above those images.
I chose Select All here, but you can select individual images in the group too.


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## Forkie (Jan 11, 2013)

That's been there the whole time and I never even noticed it.....


Jesus.  :banghead:


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 11, 2013)

Forkie said:


> That's been there the whole time and I never even noticed it.....
> 
> 
> Jesus.  :banghead:



I hadn't either!

I tried it with my 51 pictures, using the "settings" option but I didn't see any change in any of them :???:. Too bad, it sounded like exactly what I was looking for.


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## molested_cow (Jan 11, 2013)

So you are saying that you have 51 photos already taken, each with some variations that you want to "ractorize"?

You can try using "auto tone", "auto color" etc to see if the software(photoshop) will try to make them look the same. Otherwise, it can be a tedious job like you said, to adjust each one.

Otherwise, make them black and white(desaturate). That will at least get rid of the color factor.


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## KmH (Jan 11, 2013)

Gerardo_G said:


> Forkie said:
> 
> 
> > That's been there the whole time and I never even noticed it.....
> ...



Synchronizing Camera Raw settings | Working with Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop CS5 | Peachpit



> 3. Make the necessary adjustments *to the selected image*, including cropping if all the images are to be cropped in exactly the same way. You could also click a preset in the Presets tab.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 11, 2013)

molested_cow said:


> So you are saying that you have 51 photos  already taken, each with some variations that you want to "ractorize"?
> 
> You can try using "auto tone", "auto color" etc to see if the  software(photoshop) will try to make them look the same. Otherwise, it  can be a tedious job like you said, to adjust each one.
> 
> Otherwise, make them black and white(desaturate). That will at least get rid of the color factor.




Thanks molested_cow (curious name), yes the 51 pictures already exist. Desaturate isn't an option since color helps origamists understand each step. I could try does automatic options, they're only in Photoshop but not in Camera Raw, right? In that case, I would have to make an action that edits that option in all the 51 photos, right? I haven't tried that before, but I'm open to the idea 




KmH said:


> Synchronizing Camera Raw settings | Working with Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop CS5 | Peachpit
> 
> 3. Make the necessary adjustments *to the selected image*, including cropping if all the images are to be cropped in exactly the same way. You could also click a preset in the Presets tab.
> 
> ...



Thanks KmH, no wonder it didn't seem to work. And what does synchronize do: repeat each option with the exact same levels from the picture I edited in all the other pictures or alter each option depending on each picture in orther to make each one look similar to the one I edited?


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 14, 2013)

Sw1thFX, molested_cow, and KmH when you have a second would you please help me with my questions?

If someone else have the answer to them I would really appreciate the information .


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## KmH (Jan 15, 2013)

You need to get a good Camera Raw reference/training book - The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop 

Photo Editing with Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge | I Heart Faces

use sync in camera raw - Bing


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 15, 2013)

KmH said:


> Yes. Camera Raw has a Sync function.
> 
> Open multiple images so Camera Raw has a use for the Sync function. They will all be on the left side of the Camera Raw page. Look above those images.
> I chose Select All here, but you can select individual images in the group too.



Hmm...No sh*t. Tells you the last time I used ACR for batch processing.....NEVER!


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## KmH (Jan 15, 2013)

Hopefully before you got Lightroom, you didn't have a need to use ACR's Sync mode, but didn't know you had it.

ACR has been around longer than Lightroom has

That's how it is that Lightroom *4* uses ACR *7*.
The first Lightroom uses ACR 4.
Lightroom 2 uses ACR 5, and Lightroom 3 uses ACR 6

ACR first appeared with Photoshop 7 (code name - _Liquid Sky)_. The current CS 6 (code name - _Superstition_) is actually Photoshop 13/ACR 7/Bridge 5. 
Photoshop 8 (code name - _Dark Matter_)was the first to be called - CS (Creative Suite, ACR 2).
CS 2 (code name - _Space Monkey_) is Photoshop 9/ACR 3/Bridge.
CS 3 (code name - _Red Pill_) is Photoshop 10/ACR 4/Bridge 2....etc.


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## Gerardo_G (Jan 16, 2013)

KmH said:


> You need to get a good Camera Raw reference/training book - The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop
> 
> Photo Editing with Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge | I Heart Faces
> 
> use sync in camera raw - Bing




Thanks for the links KmH! I'll be sure to study them when I get a little more time 




Sw1tchFX said:


> Hmm...No sh*t. Tells you the last time I used ACR for batch processing.....NEVER!



Ok Sw1tchFX, would you explain to me how would you "do it in one sweep" using Lightroom?... thanks in advance!


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