color balance problems

[Noctem]

My digital camera has a horrible time photographing my tank. Between the browns of the stand, and pumice, the redshift in my lights, and the woodgrain paneling behind the tank, the color balance is garbage. (looks like I used a brown& white after affect)

How can I correct this?

BTW already tried using color correction in various software, it either under or overcorrects. Very very little middle-ground befor colors bleed out.

[DrPhips]

Well for one I would make sure that the lighting in the rest of the room is good. If you are catching glare from the strong colors of the varnish on the woodgrain, try adding a few soft lights/lamps behind you when you go to take shots. Light that hits the ceiling (assuming it isn't too high and white'ish like mine) will help.

Most consumer digital cameras give very washed out or blown out color maps. It feels like the camera is trying to do too much when it is really just struggling to do anything at all.

If your camera has a manual setting where you can adjust f-stop and ISO... toy around with those as well as your focal range... I'm not gonna give you my photography 101 course here.

But as is the case with all cameras, particularly digitals, lighting should always be the first to be addressed. My trick with digitals is to do whatever it takes to nott have to use the flash. For some reason the flash adds way too much contrast to the images. So get more light, set that baby on a tripod, and turn the bloody flash off.