Skeleton from Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean

This is a shot from the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.  The picture was taken with a Nikon D800, 1/100, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 200mm.

There was a fair amount of clean up in Lightroom due to the strong lights that flood the area.

Wendy on the Columbia in Fantasmic

Wendy in Fantasmic

This is a shot of Wendy on the Columbia during Fantasmic.  What will happen?  Will she be able to fight off the pirates?  Where is Peter Pan?  Who is going to help her?
This was taken with a Nikon D600 with the following settings 1/400 (to stop the motion), f/2.8 (to allow as much light in as possible), ISO 1600 (again to let in light but not have to much "noise") with a 200mm lens set at 195mm.
Some work was done in Lightroom 5.
Oh, and everything turns out fine.

The Parking lot and the Main Entrance to Disneyland in 1957

Parking lot and Main Entrance to Disneyland in 1957

It is 1957, you pack the family up in the Studebaker and drive off to Disneyland.  Into the parking lot you go (yes, the parking lot was right next to the main entrance at that time), you walk 50 yards and you are at the main gate.  Purchase your entry ticket and a book of ride tickets (A,B,C and D no E tickets yet) and off you go.

What is the right color for Disneyland Dark Rides?

Just increasing the Exposure

 These are both the same picture, the first one is right out of the camera with the only adjustment being an increase in the Exposure.  The shot was taken with the following settings: Nikon D800, 1/125, f/2.8 ISO 5000, 200mm  It came out very dark so I increased the exposure but it has a lot of unnatural light.  In the dark rides they flood each scene with hash lights.  In the POTC it is usually red (as they want to give you the idea that things are burning) and yellow.  In the Haunted Mansion it is green and blue.  It's A Small World changes from scene to scene and some areas actually change in color gradually over time.

After adjustments

Normally you do not notice these hash lights.  Your eyes and brain have a way of filtering them out.  Sadly a camera is not able to do that, so when we take a picture everything that is there is what we start off with.  People can take pictures and look at them and say "that is not how I remembered that scene".  Which is true because your eyes have an amazing way of allow you to see what you want to see.

On the second one I changed the orange Hue more to the yellow end, reduced the saturation of Orange, Yellow and green and lowered the Luminance of Orange to blend in with the yellow that was left.  I added some noise reduction but not a lot otherwise a lot of the detail would be gone.  I increased the blacks and shadows and lowered the highlights (the skull was getting blown out) and increased the contrast. (All adjustments were done in Lightroom). You can click on them to see a larger version, keep in mind that I did reduce the size and pixel count of these to upload them so you are not going to see what would be actually printed).

I have to say that I still do not like the shot very much.  I can adjust the amount of blue in the background and change the Luminance of it.  It also needs to have some color added back into it.  But the idea is to try and get to something that would look normal.  This is a start.  Another question is, what is the right color, what colors are we trying to get with the finished picture?  Do we want what would be there is there were no hash lights?  Maybe, but the lights also provide some additional "feeling" to the scene so we do not want to remove them completely.

I think it boils down to, what colors do you want to see.  When you look at a picture the question should really be, do you like it?  Does it appeal to you?  And if it hits those marks then it is a good picture no matter what the final colors are.