Why are my skin tones coming out RED?!!

[kenw]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

The Canon's save the settings, once applied, just as the Nikons do.
The wb does not change when you change memory cards.

I know one guy that has a funny trick for custom white balancing.
He keeps a small capacity card in his camera bag with a photo on it of a white sheet of printer paper (which is the suggested wb subject in the 20D owner's manual).
About once a month, he'll be pull out that card, put it in the camera, white balance off it, put it back in the bag.
The image does not degrade colorwise, so he's been using it for years.

unless he's shooting in the exact same light as the image on the card was taken in, how does this work?

[Mark McCall]

Ken,
he's balancing for his main light source....flash.
The color temperature on the flash he's using is about 5400k. Color temperature never changes.

[Angelo]

This is a great topic and great advice. I'm understanding my equipment much better.
But, let me ask this question. The Canon manuals, 20D and 1DSMarkII, both state that you get better correction by using 18% gray card instead of a white card.

I've been using 18% gray all my life. What's the difference?

[Mark McCall]

Angelo,
Although a grey card was originally designed for exposure...not white balancing, (way before digital), both work the same.

To test this theory, take a photo of a McBeth Color Checker (colored checkerboard).
Do a Click white balance on the white box or any of the grey tone boxes.
You'll notice that the white balance changes only a tiny bit when white or the greys, but will change dramatically if you click on another color.
White or grey will white balance the same.

It's been over a year since I read a 20D manual, but I could have sworn Canon mentioned white paper instead...but like I said, It's been over a year since I read it.
Regardless...white or grey, works the same.

[Angelo]

Mark, thanks much. As I said before, this is a great learning topic for me.

Both manuals mention a "white card" but if you go to the bottom of the topic it states
that a gray 18% works better (I'm speaking from memory). Why they would use the word "better" I don't know. I fully understand the logic.

I've been tempted to buy one of those Expodisc. It is difficult for me to understand the logic behind that filter. They promote it as "Professional Digital White Balance" filter. The thing I don't understand is, if it takes in all the colors and mixes them up how can it give you a true white balance? I can understand a correct exposure, but a correct white balance?
I must be awefully dense 'cause I can't make logic of it....

[kenw]

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Ken,
he's balancing for his main light source....flash.
The color temperature on the flash he's using is about 5400k. Color temperature never changes.

ok, that makes sense. I had overlooked the flash part.

and the Canon 10d manual does in fact recommend something white.

[Mark McCall]

Angelo,
I haven't a clue as to why they say grey is better.

Canon (or any other raw converter), will display a tiny difference between white or grey when click balancing.

Ken,
thanks for the info on the 10D manual. I guess the same info is in all the EOS manuals.

[kenw]

On grey vs white:

some discussions on MPix awhile back indicated that many felt that using a white card was too difficult to expose properly, that glare, chromic aberrations and such made it difficult. I never found this to be the case in my experiences, and kept a white sheet of paper (laminated) in my Coolpix camera bag to manually set WB for each shot. Sunsets/sunrises change by the second!

Technically as long as whatever you do use is color-neutral, it matters not. Since a grey has equal values of RGB, as does white (255, 255, 255) any % grey will work, and since most photographers already have an 18% grey (209, 209, 209?) card, it becomes natural to use the one card for both purposes.

However, some may realize (as have I) that use of a grey card can be rather tricky in very low light / no flash conditions, and in those cases, the white card would actually work better due to the higher reflectivity.

[specialist]

Originally Posted by robert t

you might need to reset all settings.

how do you make those black shades around the photo?.. is it called vignetting?.. im not sure on the spelling.. i have been trying to figure that out..

[Mark McCall]

Here's a shot with a vignette action applied.
I've also attached my vignetting action. It's java based so will only work in Photoshop CS, CSII, and I'm assuming CSIII.

[NoLight]

Like everyone has said get it right in the camera. When shooting I use a ExpoDisk religiously and when I dont have time for that I use a Whibal. The whibal gives a little cooler WB but get really close compared to the Expodisk. Thanx for the action Mark!!!

[Pascal]

Seems to be an issue of WB.

A temp of 3200 or around that range would help. If you are going to be doing a lot of imaging without flash, I would recommend you get an expodisc WB filter which should help.

Shooting in RAW also helps a little.

Most likely, the problem is not with the camera, but with the settings. Change the WB settings and try it out. You have several options for white balance in your SLR. They are there for a reason. Tailor each shot to the way you want it.

Unfortunately, the Rebel's don't have a custom WB setting for temperature.

[SaundraU]

Originally Posted by KeepsakeGirl

Zepp,

What you posted makes total sense, but my color temperature is already set to 3200 so if my flash is off, shouldn't I be getting more accurate tones?
what scares me is that it doesn't seem i can trust the color on my camera...I imported the files on 3 diff machines and all of them look this way so I know its not a monitor issue.

You need to take it off of AWB and put it to color temp otherwise your AWB is overriding the temp setting.

[dtscds]

This may be a long shot since it is so basic. But, I only know about it because I shot HUNDREDS of shots that had to be reworked because of it. My 30D has a setting called "Picture Style". I had somehow changed it to portrait or landscape and things got reddish. I just read in the manual that it is even possible to change the defaults under each setting--you can take the "Portrait" setting and mess with it to get more or less of each parameter.
Just a thought. Maybe this will help.

[texaskev]

Thanks, learned a lot!