Between 01:45:42 UTCand 01:46:02 the Mastcam Left took three photos each taken through a narrow band filter in one of three individual RGB colors, from the combination of which I obtained this beautiful photo of the Martian soil.
Notice the “tigerish” look of the sand, but especially how the color rendition is extremely similar to photos that normally undergo white balancing. This is because normal “raw” images use the normal Bayer mask (color coded or not) without an infrared cut filter, where therefore all colors tend to pink (see http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/d70/ircut.htm).
The image was obtained by combining three black and white photos but each taken through a narrow band filter in each of the three individual RGB colors.
In addition, the photo has undergone a reduction in noise due to Jpeg compression and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation.
Given the use of narrowband filters, no white balance was necessary in order to make the colors more similar to what the human eye would see.
Original images:
Red (01:46:02 UTC): https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02725/mcam/2725ML0142580021004267D01_DXXX.jpg
Green (01:45:42 UTC): https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02725/mcam/2725ML0142580001004265D01_DXXX.jpg
Blue (01:45:52 UTC): https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02725/mcam/2725ML0142580011004266D01_DXXX.jpg
Thumbnails for checking the colors of the filters used: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw-images/?order=sol+desc%2Cinstrument_sort+asc%2Csample_type_sort+asc%2C+date_taken+desc&per_page=50&page=0&mission=msl&begin_sol=2725&end_sol=2725&af=MAST_LEFT%7CMAST_RIGHT%2C%2Cthumbnail%3A%3Asample_type
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