White balance probs

[saber]

Hi guys and Girls,

Maybe this is a stupid question but how do you get white objects, correct white in photos. I know you can set the white balance manually to shadow, sunlight, artificial light etc. But I never seem te get the right one, white turns out a bit yellowish or blueish. Do you use a grey card and manually set the white balance or is it shooting RAW most of the time and post process it?
Who can give me some sites, tips, techniques on how to solve my white balance problem?

Thank you in advance,

Frank

[evil4blue]

Preset your WB by shooting a gray card. That's probably the most full proof way. Everything else is going to have to be done from your RAW s/w.

[Hogleg 44]

Check this out. Movies about White Balance. It is a product page but Michael Tapes explains a lot about what you are asking. FWIW WhiBal is good. I bought it.

http://pictureflow.fileburst.com/_Tu...Bal/index.html

[srwatters]

Between ACR 3.2 (or your favorite RAW converter) and photoshop's eyedropper (levels) I can pretty much make the image how I want it. Notice I said how I want it not what is really white. If I'm shooting jpegs I try to set custom white balance. After you shoot a few thousand frames with your equipment and process them with your workflow, you'll figure it out. Problem is, when you change one of the puzzle pieces, things get a little different. I think I finally have the hang of it with my D70 and ACR3.2. Sometimes I flop too:



vs.



The second image is more true to life, but I like #1 much better!

[markperez]

Oh the age old question. I have asked a lot of times on a lot of forums. Do you use a white or gray card to set the white balance. This is almost as controversial as asking which is better. Canon or Nikon.

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by markperez

Oh the age old question. I have asked a lot of times on a lot of forums. Do you use a white or gray card to set the white balance. This is almost as controversial as asking which is better. Canon or Nikon.

Check out Michael Tapes movies on the link in my previous post. While those tutorials are made to sell his product, they are quite informative, and explain a lot.
I guess either white or gray will do. My understanding is that the camera sees them both as the same thing. The WhiBal set actually comes with two different shades of gray and white and black. Go figure that one out!! So which gray is right??? Here we go again!
But ultimately it seems to boil down to color temp setting. If it don't look right, do what I do, just slide the temp slider until it does.
OOPs!!! I'm shooting Raw and the slider I speak of is in the converter.

[markperez]

I just watched the videos and I saw that he used the light gray for RAW and the dark gray for JPEG. He didn't use the white card at all. So my question is WHAT THE HECK IS THE WHITE CARD THERE FOR!?

[Hogleg 44]

Apparently it is a third reference point in case the gray doesn't give you the color-tones you think are right.
I understood that the white is for camera settings and grey is for setting the white balance. Use the white card to pre set the camera in manual white balance mode, in a given lighting situation. Use the gray to set the white balance in post processing. That's my understanding. IMHO though, if the colors don't look right then I adjust the temp slider until they do in my raw converter. Usually C1. But what I think looks right, you may not. So I think all of the confusion in this white balance thing, is all in the eye of the beholder, and the card, white or gray, is just a starting point toward what pleases ME.
The real Proper white balance setting will probably never be achieved until we all see through the same pair of eyeballs!

[jeffkohn]

I have the WhiBal. Interestingly I found that the dark gray card is more neutral, at least mine is. The light gray card is biased just a hair towards red which means the resulting WB is biased just a hair towards blue. So I click-balance using the dark gray card during raw conversion.

But really this just gives a starting point. Depending on the light I may adjust from there. It's important to realize that a completely neutral WB may not always be most pleasing; and in fact it may not be the most true to what our eyes see. Yes our eyes to some extent filter out color casts, but not completely. You can still see the difference between a room lit with a tungsten light bulb versus one lit but sunlight through a window.

[GaryW]

As far as color correction in PP, there is an excellent Quicktime tutorial at:

http://www.photoworkshop.com/registe...pp/index2.html

[saber]

Wow! Just got the chance to check back and this seems to be a hot item.
The whibal seems great for my kind of use, but I don't seem to get it here in the Netherlands. Maybe I will order it in the US. Great Instructions on that site, Thank you Hogleg 44!

The method told in the movie, sugested by GaryW, is very useful as wel. This might help a few unexperienced photographers, like me, a lot.

Regards,

Frank

[Hogleg 44]

Frank.
I believe the WhiBal is available only from RawWorkflow.com. He is the one responsible for creating it, so it is not even in stores here. It is nice though because you can't damage it. The color goes completely through it so even if you scratch it up the color is still the same..

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by markperez

I just watched the videos and I saw that he used the light gray for RAW and the dark gray for JPEG. He didn't use the white card at all. So my question is WHAT THE HECK IS THE WHITE CARD THERE FOR!?

For JPG shooters, I guess you could use the white/black cards with the white/black eye droppers in Levels/Curves. Though to be honest I think the real reason is to justify the $40 price, after all 4 cards are better than 2, right? ;)

[markperez]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

For JPG shooters, I guess you could use the white/black cards with the white/black eye droppers in Levels/Curves. Though to be honest I think the real reason is to justify the $40 price, after all 4 cards are better than 2, right? ;)

Well in the movies he didn't even use the white and black cards then. He used the dark gray card in levels.

Some stuff I have read says to use an 18% gray card for exposure which makes sense to me because isn't that is what the in camera meter is set for? The same stuff says use a pure whit card to set the white balance which again makes sense to me because it is after all called white balance.

[billbunton]

In a truly properly exposed photo, the white card should be right at, or really close, to 255,255,255. You need somewhat lower levels to get the proper white balance, thus the light gray card. I have heard that for JPEG (presumably setting the in-camera WB) that the darker gray card works better, but I don't shoot JPEGs so I've never actually tried it.