Allow me to start by saying that I love the Mavic 3. I'm quite pleased with the quality I'm getting from it, and it's simply a pleasure to fly.

All that aside, I'm working to create a photography/videography business with this drone, and have some issues I'd like resolved before I can charge clients the prices I'm aiming for.

One of the biggest issues I have is the false color that shows up in the details of a photo. It makes alot of the whites in the image appear blue, and it gets worse when I add any vibrance/saturation. I have to use brushes on them in Adobe Lightroom which is mostly effective but takes ages. Below is an example photo from the small town I live in. The image was shot in raw and I haven't edited it except for blurring out license plates. The other images are zoomed screenshots to show the false color.

Again, I can make these photos look decent, but this one took me 45 minutes to brush over all of the false color.

Here's a screenshot. All the red is where I've brushed over false color

I'm afraid it's just how light works, in videogames they try to mimic this with global illumination.

Shadow areas get the light that bounces on the rest of the scene (mainly from the blue sky). Blue light illuminating a neutral surface = blue surface as a result.

If you want better colors for the M3 make a DNG color profile with either the color checker classic/passport or the colorchecker digital SG and the X-Rite or Calibrite plugin for Lighroom.

Also, to improve the overall image quality you can right-click on the images on Lightroom and  use enhance; it's pretty subtle, but get's rid of moiré and some artifacts produced by the bayer filter.

Hello there Digital Skies. Thank you for reaching out and for giving out these information. I hope that our fellow DJI Co pilots can share and give out that edition software they are using to edit there work. Thank you and have a nice day.

Huginn Kenningar Posted at 7-31 15:51
I'm afraid it's just how light works, in videogames they try to mimic this with global illumination.

Shadow areas get the light that bounces on the rest of the scene (mainly from the blue sky). Blue light illuminating a neutral surface = blue surface as a result.

Thank you for the informative and helpful reply. I appreciate it.

All DJI Cameras and other cameras as well have this issue, I fix it with a color mask in Camera RAW. Pretty easy but annoying fix to do on every photo.

First of this is not DJI related issue, or issue at all.
If you take a photo with any camera you will have same result, this is how light works as Huginn Kenningar said.
So now you are free to charge clients the prices you aim for, just don't ever tell them that you are new in the business, cause this was a noob question

Goran_m_pg Posted at 8-1 13:37
First of this is not DJI related issue, or issue at all.
If you take a photo with any camera you will have same result, this is how light works as Huginn Kenningar said.
So now you are free to charge clients the prices you aim for, just don't ever tell them that you are new in the business, cause this was a noob question

False. Whites showing up as blue is indeed an issue, regardless of whether it occurs in many cameras. Though this was an educational discussion and I'm glad I posted it.

Not sure I understand what you wrote. If I ask noob questions, (though I don't remember asking one) then wouldn't that imply that I am indeed new to the business?

You can make that sign white, you just need to correct white balance, but then again everything out of the shadow will be wrong color, so you need to mask it. As far as i know, there is no camera that compensate for that. I have 4000 eur sony mirrorless camera, with same "issue" you describe.
There is nothing wrong with noob questions, and yes, your question is a noob one since understanding white balance is a basis for a photograpy, the only thing I wanted to joke about was your stance that you cant charge clients big money cause of it.
No hard feelings man.

This happens with our eyes as well as cameras. Nothing wrong at all with your pictures.

Mobilehomer Posted at 8-2 17:06
This happens with our eyes as well as cameras. Nothing wrong at all with your pictures.

The only thing is that brain is compensating a lot in those situations

Apart from the issue being discussed, I just wanted to say I really like the small town pic.  Very cool scene.

I wont claim to be a professional photographer, as I have drifted out of the profession the last several years but was very active in my past. I focused mostly on landscape, nature, wildlife, etc. Sold many prints, had contracts with several local offices where my work still hangs in their buildings, even dabbled in weddings even though I never was big on portraiture or wedding photography. I also ran for 2 years an online photography community website where we had hundreds of photographers around the world post their work for critique from fellow photographers. We got into a LOT of these types of discussions. I say all that to give you some perspective on where I draw my opinion I am abotu to share. The issue you highlight here is largely a non issue. You definitely want to make sure your white balance is set properly, but outside of that, I wouldnt stress over the rest. In my experience, most clients would never even notice or pick up on this. Most cant even notice it when you point it out to them. Clients tend to look at a photograph and draw a conclusion in about 3 seconds. The conclusion they draw is almost always entirely down to the composition of the shot. A fellow photographer may look harder at things, but most average clients simply look at the composition and it either strikes them or it doesn't. Focus your energy on composition, and good balanced color and exposure, as that is where 95% of your impact will be drawn from. Tiny imperfections here and there will often never be noticed.

Tornado12 Posted at 8-3 09:25
I wont claim to be a professional photographer, as I have drifted out of the profession the last several years but was very active in my past. I focused mostly on landscape, nature, wildlife, etc. Sold many prints, had contracts with several local offices where my work still hangs in their buildings, even dabbled in weddings even though I never was big on portraiture or wedding photography. I also ran for 2 years an online photography community website where we had hundreds of photographers around the world post their work for critique from fellow photographers. We got into a LOT of these types of discussions. I say all that to give you some perspective on where I draw my opinion I am abotu to share. The issue you highlight here is largely a non issue. You definitely want to make sure your white balance is set properly, but outside of that, I wouldnt stress over the rest. In my experience, most clients would never even notice or pick up on this. Most cant even notice it when you point it out to them. Clients tend to look at a photograph and draw a conclusion in about 3 seconds. The conclusion they draw is almost always entirely down to the composition of the shot. A fellow photographer may look harder at things, but most average clients simply look at the composition and it either strikes them or it doesn't. Focus your energy on composition, and good balanced color and exposure, as that is where 95% of your impact will be drawn from. Tiny imperfections here and there will often never be noticed.

Thank you for sharing your experience as well as your helpful advice. I appreciate it