How to fix color cast in photos can be a tricky thing to do. I find I get the worst color cast problems when I am photographing events, because stylish, fancy lighting for mood almost never translates into good lighting for photos. Radiant Photo has a new tool that can help.

Recently I photographed an event at GenreCon 2024 run by Queensland Writers Centre. During one of the events, we were on a semi-outdoor balcony space, which is lit with purple downlights on the stage. I didn’t have my flash on hand to add my own light, so let’s look at how to fix color cast in Radiant Photo using the new subject-aware Portrait tools in the latest update.

How to fix color cast on people’s faces

Radiant Photo has a few tools for saving an image with all the wrong lighting. The new subject-aware Portrait tools have us covered for fixing color casts specifically on faces.

Start by opening the photo in Radiant Photo. You will find the Color Cast Removal tool here:

Detailed Edit > Skin Tone > Color Cast Removal

Check the box to turn the removal on. You should see the message “Color cast has been detected” when, well, a color cast has been detected. Click the circle arrow to the right of this message, and Radiant Photo will calculate the removal settings that are necessary.

In this photo of me at GenreCon 2024 run by Queensland Writers Centre there was a purple color cast, caused by the lighting in this room. Thanks to Shae Nicholson for the photo.

You can then fine-tune with the Red, Green, Blue sliders that appear beneath the checkbox until you are happy with the result.

This new addition to the Portrait tools makes it easy to target faces when the lighting is tricky like this.

How to fix color cast on a group of people

What about when your photo has a color cast across a whole group of people? In the next image you can see the effect of the purple lighting on the stage with everyone being affected by the color cast.

how to fix color cast radiant photo screenshot
FIxing color cast off a group of people can be tricky, but using a combination of tools in Radiant Photo you can remove much of the issue.

To fix this color cast I am going to use three tools. The first is as above: The Color Cast Removal under the new Skin Tone tools.

Using the Corrective Filter

This wasn’t enough to fix it completely, so secondly, I am also going to apply a Corrective Filter:

Detailed Edit > Color > Corrective Filter > Dark Green

I’ve chosen Dark Green because this is the color opposite to the purple/magenta toning that is a problem in the image.

Using the Selective Color tools to correct color tint

The color cast still remains a little, but it’s been significantly improved. Finally, we have one more trick up our sleeves to fix this color cast. Moving now into the Color Grade tools, we can use Radiant Photo’s new Selective Color tools for a little trick I like to use. Head into:

Color Grade> click into the crosshair panel > Selective Color > Eyedropper

I use the eyedropper to click on one of our subject’s shirts, where the purple cast is still evident. This adds the shade of purple to the Selective Color panel, and I can now adjust that specific shade. I decrease the Saturation and increase the Luminance.

event photo with color cast screenshot
First click the color square you want to replace with the Eyedropper. Then use the Eyedropper to pick a color from the image. Finally, adjust the Saturation and Luminance to taste.

This gives the illusion of whiter-whites. It removes the color cast from clothing and a little more from faces and skin. I can click onto another square in the Selective Color panel, and repeat, for any other problem areas. This has to be done carefully, but it can go a long way to correcting color cast in an image.

I like this trick for removing a blue color cast from white shirts in wedding photos. Daylight commonly gives a blueish color cast to white clothes. Therefore, dropping the blue saturation and increasing its luminance is effective, and rarely affects other parts of the image like skin tone.

How to fix a tint over a whole image with Radiant Photo

Radiant Photo also has the tools to fix tint over a whole image, like the below example. Find this in:

Detailed Edit > Color > Tint Correction

I’ve used Maximum for this image to remove the purple tone across the image.

Remove tint and color cast with a range of options in Radiant Photo

When you don’t have control over the lighting, fixing it in post is sometimes the only option. Depending on the image there are a range of options to use to fix this. The new release of Radiant Photo can correct color casts on faces with the subject-specific Portrait tools, with Tint Correction, and the Selective Color tools.