Stage Photography, Post-Processing Trick

Have you ever tried capturing images in a small music club where the only lighting was from stage floods that were programmed to change colors?  I’ve spent hours fiddling with Lightroom adjustments of images from such venues till I’m 9,000K in the face, trying to create an acceptable photo.  Well, a commenter of a DPReview article (19 Tips for Better Live Music Photography) offered a simple tip: desaturate all the channels (but not to B&W) and increase the temperature dramatically.  It works!  No more spending five minutes customizing each of dozens of photos. 

Laurence Juber, March 31, 2016, Jammin' Java -- Before/After

Using Lightroom this photo was adjusted by lowering the saturation of all the color channels to about -50, raising the temperature to 12,155K and raising the Tint to +61.  The photo has no other changes such as tone or presence.   The commenter (dark goob) talked about doing this in-camera, but as you can see, it works in post on RAW files also.  Here are his words: “Set the cameras saturation down low (not all the way to B&W) and set the white balance manually to like 12,000K or something crazy, and you can make the reds not blow out the details right in your camera before you take the shot.”