a white balance question (RAW)

[Gordon]

I notice this with my 1DII. I believe I've seen the same effect with my previous canon SLR too.

I shoot in RAW. But I usually set the white balance appropriate to the lighting condition I'm in. E..g,
sunny, cloudy, tungsten, whatever. Makes the images look right on the back of the camera, which can change how I shoot.

Anyway - in lightroom, ACR etc, the white balance usually looks fine. I can use the droppers, fix it up with custom tweaks etc. So I don't have a problem as such. But there's something that's been bugging me.

If I shoot in cloudy white balance for example (RAW - remember) and see it 'as shot' it looks fine. But if I then ever use the drop down 'cloudy' presets, it seems to be a much lower temp is applied. The images always end up looking far, far too orange, in either shade or cloudy modes, if I use the converter presets.

Is this just me ?

[CaptainTom]

I think that the converter presets may be lowering the color temp a certain number of degrees instead of taking into account what the original image was recording ??? just a guess.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by CaptainTom

I think that the converter presets may be lowering the color temp a certain number of degrees instead of taking into account what the original image was recording ??? just a guess.

Yeah, I was wondering that as I was typing it all out. Like I said, it isn't a big deal, it just seems weird that the presets are essentially useless to me at that point. I need to look at the actual Kelvin numbers and work it out I suppose.

[CaptainTom]

I think that when an image is perfectly White balanced, perfectly exposed, etc. the PP programs are not going to make it better. They can certainlly help save images that aren't perfect, and can alter images to make them more what you wanted.
I also think that RAW and CS/LR keep us from trying to achieve the perfect exposure/balance. Keep up the good work.

[srwatters]

I'll bet that Jeff Kohn knows...

I see the same thing with my Nikon. I wonder if the ACR settings are just too warm in the 'cloudy' mode. I think in Kelvin now and ignore the pre-sets. YMMV.

[markfh]

I noticed that with my Canon so I've been using a whitebal card and set the WB in PP to what that records and rarely fiddle with any of the presets. I've been very pleased with the results.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by markfh

I noticed that with my Canon so I've been using a whitebal card and set the WB in PP to what that records and rarely fiddle with any of the presets. I've been very pleased with the results.

I'm usually trying to find interesting, available light, so a whitebal card is the last thing I want anywhere near my pictures. It's like shooting sunsets in AWB :)

[JohnT]

Not at all. I noticed this a long time ago so I tend to stay away from the presets unless one really does "fix" the WB. I'll use the dropper whenever possible or even the sliders to make look the way I want.

[Duffy Pratt]

I don't know the answer for sure, but here's what I would check. Take a few differently exposed pictures and put the "cloudy" WB setting on in ACR. See if it gives the same color temp for each shot. If so, then it's not doing a difference, but assigning absolute values.

I suspect that the answer is that ACR has a different idea of what "cloudy" is than Canon has. I would be very surprised if the ACR settings were fixed adjustments, but as I said, I haven't tested this.

Duffy

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

I suspect that the answer is that ACR has a different idea of what "cloudy" is than Canon has.....

Yep. That is what I've found to be true.

I think it's an Adobe thing.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by thejakestir

Yep. That is what I've found to be true.

I think it's an Adobe thing.

That's pretty much what I'd assume too, as it seems common to Lightroom & ACR. Raw shooter used to do even more hideous things, as did C1.

So is there any easy way to reset those defaults to more canon friendly / sane values

I suppose I could just save new presets.

[Duffy Pratt]

If you are setting the white balance you want in your camera, why wouldn't you just start with the "As Shot" option. That should give you whatever Canon pre-set that you used when shooting. If that's not any good, I would think you almost always would be better served with either using the eyedropper or the sliders.

The exception that occurs to me, at least with the 20D, is for tungsten lighting. Canon doesn't do a good job on this, IMO. I haven't tried the ACR pre-set either. But this is a situation where creating your own preset would probably work.

Another possibility is to create a bridge folder with typical lighting schemes that are well-balanced, and then using the copy/paste feature to apply the white balance from a similar shot to the pictures that you want. That seems like it would be pretty quick and easy at least for getting a starting point.

Duffy

[billbunton]

Everyone interprets the color temperature numbers somewhat differently, especially when combined with tint. If you set "sunny" on different cameras and look at what ACR says, it'll read different numbers for different makes/models -- that's what Adobe has to map the settings into, in their color temp number interpretation system, to get the desired color. Setting "cloudy" in ACR simply sets it to 6500K, +10 tint in Adobe's system. It doesn't try to match what the values would be if the camera were set to cloudy. You'll see the same effect if you simply look at one of those "as shot" with the camera set to sunny, then select Adobe's sunny instead (5500K, +10).

The best way I've found to set presets is to shoot frames at each of the camera's WB settings, then load each one, modify the "as shot" temp by 100 and then back. This changes the setting from "as shot" to custom. You can then save it as "5D Sunny", "5D Cloudy", etc.

[Jake]

Actually, I think Canon's RAW software does a great job. It reads the file just like the camera.
Even Adobe's "As Shot" option isn't really the same as it was really shot.

I set a bunch of stuff in camera, but Adobe doesn't read it.
There are time's when I can extract a whole set of JPG's from DPP without doing anything in the RAW conversion.

But that's a different workflow that most people don't like.

[CaptainTom]

Has anyone had any experience using Canon's White Balance bracketing ??