How can the G16 "desaturate" night photos like this

[charleyhorse]

Hi. I own a G16, Can someone tell how to get photos like the one below, taken in Rome at night, to have less of the yellow streetlight in them? It looks like a white balance problem but I'm not sure.

Thanks. Don

[ScottyP]

The yellow here doesn't bother me but you could adjust white balance.

It might be better to go into color channels in Lightroom or other post processing to knock yellow back some. I don't see any pure white so you would need to sample around for a midtone shadow for use as a grey card substitute or else wing it completely.

One problem is you have mixed light in the shot. The things in the shade are not at all yellow so if you cool down the WB in the image you will have blue on the guy's face and the left building and the shaded sides of the cars.

[ScottyP]

You could also figure out what kind of light that source is and then take the camera off of auto WB and select the kind of light it is, if it is tungsten or fluorescent anyway. You would do this before you take the shot of course. The problem still is the mixed light. Your shadows would be a different color.

But then if the yellow is not the bulb but rather a color cast reflection of the yellow paint on the building then you are into a different issue.

Again, I sort of like the yellow.

[charleyhorse]

Hi. Thanks for the input. I know what you mean. I kinda like the yellow, too, which is why I planned my trip this year to Italy to shoot street photos at night and why I bought the G16. I wanted a point-and-shoot that came with an f1.8 so I could get these precious night shows.

I posted this same question on dpreview.com and a guy there took the time to "desaturate' this phot. He desaturated it so much that it no longer looked like a night photo (see below). So now I'm rethinking how to handle this shoot and whether I want to keep the yellow or take at least some of it out.