# The joy of proper white balance.



## Ozarker (Nov 20, 2017)

I was taking photos tonight without flash in very low light ( Canon 35mm f/1.4L II and 135 f/2L) of my wife, daughter, and grandson as they decorated the Christmas tree. I've almost never shot indoors and always figured that AWB was good enough. I was not happy at all about the results. The wall colors were way off, and skin tones looked bad. It was a mess.

Then I started to play with the manual Kelvin settings. Wow! I was able to get the colors and mood to look exactly like my eye was seeing them. Very exciting for an amateur like me. I really need to explore and learn my settings better. I can see how this might also be used as a powerful creative tool.

You more experienced photogs already know this for sure. There might be some newer folks who, like me, never played with that. It really is a great thing to figure out.

One question I have: Is there a quicker way to dial this in other than trial and error? I have a good Sekonic light meter and color checker passport I have not learned to use yet. Would that help? I have some cognitive deficits that make it hard to learn new things and also affects short term memory (accident three years ago). I have to write myself notes a lot and sometimes forget why I wrote them or what they even mean the next day. That's why I don't know my gear as well as I should.


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## hne (Nov 20, 2017)

Flip your ColourChecker Passport to the grey page, point that towards dominant light source and take a photo of it. If you take a picture where it covers a significant part of your frame, you can tell the camera to use custom white balance from that, otherwise you can use spot white balance off of it when developing your RAW files.

Another way of setting whitebalance in post is to know that human skin midtones are very colour stable at pretty much spot on 20° hue. Go outside the range of 19-21 and the subject would pretty much look sick, sunburned or just plain wrong. Unless of course you're using coloured light for an effect, but then you don't care about accurate white balance anyway.
https://www.toolfarm.com/blog/entry/skin


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## Pippan (Nov 20, 2017)

hne said:


> Flip your ColourChecker Passport to the grey page, point that towards dominant light source and take a photo of it. If you take a picture where it covers a significant part of your frame, you can tell the camera to use custom white balance from that, otherwise you can use spot white balance off of it when developing your RAW files.
> 
> Another way of setting whitebalance in post is to know that human skin midtones are very colour stable at pretty much spot on 20° hue. Go outside the range of 19-21 and the subject would pretty much look sick, sunburned or just plain wrong. Unless of course you're using coloured light for an effect, but then you don't care about accurate white balance anyway.
> https://www.toolfarm.com/blog/entry/skin


Even better, take a photo of the coloured squares of your Colorchecker Passport in the light that falls on your subject, and make a light source profile from it in your raw converter (I assume they all do that, certainly Photo Ninja and Lightroom do). It takes seconds and will give you the most accurate white balance. Then if you want you can alter to taste.


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## SecureGSM (Nov 20, 2017)

Guys if I may... considering circumstances... I would consider the expodisc:

https://www.expodisc.com

A 3 step solution.. downright simple. 1,2,3 done. Btw, there are a much more affordable similar (knock off) solutions available that work just as fine. Colorchecker card may be way too confusing at times.


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## Ozarker (Nov 20, 2017)

Thanks guys. I'll give them all a try when I get back to Nevada this week. My passport and expo disk are there. I've had them all for quite some time, but have never used them. Now that I know how important proper WB is... I'm going to have to figure out what works best for me. Appreciate all your comments


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## arthurbikemad (Nov 20, 2017)

For portraits I use the colour checker passport, its amazing how subtle changes in profiles effects an image, viewed one at a time they can often look ok, side by side, another matter. For any product work (not that I do much anymore - I did sell spaceman) I always set WB with a grey card and create a profile, I even profile my meter (no reason to now for my hobby stuff so god knows why I spend out on the latest meters) for as true to life imaging as possible.


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## Viggo (Nov 20, 2017)

Over time I have made custom ColorChecker Profiles for my lenses under pretty much all types of light. So I usually just bring my CBL wb tool and sample wb and use a CC profile in raw converting. Easy and superb results.  I realized at one point I spent nearly all of my time editing wb and adjusting color so I always get it right in camera to begin with, it saves a lot of time and my results are so much more accurate.

IMO every camera needs to come with both a CC and a CBL.


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## sanj (Nov 20, 2017)

Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.


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## Luds34 (Nov 20, 2017)

sanj said:


> Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.



Same. Most the time I can do the eye dropper on a grey area. Other times it requires more manual tweaking. Either way, I usually set it for one photo and copy/paste it for the rest of them.

I like the new AWB-W (I think that is it) setting that has mostly eliminated the poor AWB under tungsten. Again, not a big deal shooting RAW, but now it sometimes saves a step.

My only white balance woes comes when I find myself with mixed lights sources that I have no control over. Great opportunity for black and white photos.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Nov 21, 2017)

In low light, the camera is merely showing the scene as it is. Our brains adjust colors and white balance to our expectations. Thats why its so difficult to get a camera to automatically show colors as you see them.

In low light situations, there tends to be a definite lack of blue light. It so happens that sensors are weakest in blue sensitivity. This double whammy can end up showing a huge amount of noise if you turn up the gain of the blues to attempt to create a white light simulation.

I usually tend to prefer keeping colors as they actually are.


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## drmikeinpdx (Nov 21, 2017)

sanj said:


> Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.



Same here, but if you are shooting under colorful stage lights or christmas tree lights, you have to let the actual colors stay in the final image. You aren't going to get normal skin tones under those conditions, no matter what you do in Lightroom.


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## stevelee (Nov 21, 2017)

drmikeinpdx said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.
> ...



And the charm of a picture made under Christmas tree lighting comes from the colors, so of course you don't want them neutralized. For me the goal is to adjust the picture so that it looks like the scene looked to me when I decided to take the picture.

Some of you here helped me get my head around what to do about white balance on pictures I made of fall leaves near sunset. I wanted the pictures to look like it was near sunset, and not noon. I was shooting RAW, but still wanted a good starting point for my ACR adjustments. For that, using the daylight setting or just starting from the daylight preset in ACR worked quite well. I think it was a difference between 5200 and 5500 Kelvin and maybe a +10 of magenta.

For Christmas tree light pictures, if I couldn't get things quite to suit me with those two sliders, I'd tweak some of the individual colors in the HSL pane.


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## Viggo (Nov 21, 2017)

Still, that’s the beauty of the ColorChecker, you can “warm” and “cool” the wb with the tuned grey spots without color tint.


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## KeithBreazeal (Nov 21, 2017)

This was my first time using the color checker. In LR, I just used the color balance dropper over the white square- perfect. This was shot in the shade and had some green cast from the grass.



Color Checker holder © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal, on Flickr


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## Viggo (Nov 21, 2017)

I have a question;

When adjusting WB in Lr, I can adjust color temp and tint. But in camera I can only adjust color temp, how does the camera handle tint when choosing Kelvin manually?


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## privatebydesign (Nov 21, 2017)

Viggo said:


> I have a question;
> 
> When adjusting WB in Lr, I can adjust color temp and tint. But in camera I can only adjust color temp, how does the camera handle tint when choosing Kelvin manually?



No you can adjust tint too. Page 186 of the manual.


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## Viggo (Nov 21, 2017)

privatebydesign said:


> Viggo said:
> 
> 
> > I have a question;
> ...



Yeah, I’ve tried that earlier, but shifting the Kelvin temp when looking in LV I don’t really see a blue/yellow/green/Amber shift, it just looks warmer and cooler, whereas I’m changing Kelvin temp in Lr I see a tint right away.

Anyway, I use a CBL because I hate wb tuning quite a lot :


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## Ozarker (Nov 22, 2017)

privatebydesign said:


> Viggo said:
> 
> 
> > I have a question;
> ...



You have a very nimble mind and memory.


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## ahsanford (Nov 22, 2017)

CanonFanBoy said:


> Then I started to play with the manual Kelvin settings. Wow! I was able to get the colors and mood to look exactly like my eye was seeing them. Very exciting for an amateur like me. I really need to explore and learn my settings better. I can see how this might also be used as a powerful creative tool.
> 
> [truncated]
> 
> Is there a quicker way to dial this in other than trial and error? I have a good Sekonic light meter and color checker passport I have not learned to use yet. Would that help?



100% on how powerful proper WB is. I'll give you my enthusiast goulash of WB management moves for general shooting: 
_
(Professionals, please step away from this post as you will recoil in horror at my bush-league read of WB considerations)_

I shoot RAW + JPG always unless you are card / buffer constrained (i.e. shooting high fps work). I leave mine on auto WB as (you guessed it) the RAW file can manage that in post. 

I sift through my keepers and funnel them through ACR for my typical 2-3 minute slider tinkering -- not major surgery if I did my job right in-camera. Besides the obvious things you tinker with in post, I toggle between accepting (a) the AWB output, using the (b) 'As Shot' WB option or (c) going in and selecting the WB myself. If I do it myself, I eye-dropper / select a available light gray tone in the scene (hunt for pavement if you can) or I eye-dropper the whites of the subject's eyes and manually adjust the temp/tint to taste. 

I also have a gray card in my wallet. Almost never use it. 

- A


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## ahsanford (Nov 22, 2017)

sanj said:


> Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.



This. All day.

Full respect to pros who sweat the details on this stuff (for pride in their craft, for demanding clients, etc.) but I generally just push some sliders or eye-dropper a few times until it looks right to my eyes.

- A


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## hne (Nov 22, 2017)

ahsanford said:


> CanonFanBoy said:
> 
> 
> > Then I started to play with the manual Kelvin settings. Wow! I was able to get the colors and mood to look exactly like my eye was seeing them. Very exciting for an amateur like me. I really need to explore and learn my settings better. I can see how this might also be used as a powerful creative tool.
> ...



I've tried both the eye dropper on pavements and eyes and I can't get it to work reliably. Pavements tend to have varying degrees of mostly brown dirt/dust causing the pictures to turn out too cold. The eyes have veins and reflections that mess up white balance. Teeth are yellow. "White" paper and clothes varies with UV levels because of optical brightening agents in coatings and detergents. White walls are often slightly yellow.

If you have a well calibrated monitor in a room with neutral colours and good-quality lighting, you might get really close by adjusting to taste but the tint is still really tricky to get right even with practice. What I prefer to do nowadays is not go for correct white balance and just edit a series to visual similarity. Unless it is one of my more elaborate portrait setups with flashes, backgrounds and stuff, but there I tend to just trust the colour stability of my Elinchroms.


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## Pippan (Nov 22, 2017)

hne said:


> I've tried both the eye dropper on pavements and eyes and I can't get it to work reliably. Pavements tend to have varying degrees of mostly brown dirt/dust causing the pictures to turn out too cold. The eyes have veins and reflections that mess up white balance. Teeth are yellow. "White" paper and clothes varies with UV levels because of optical brightening agents in coatings and detergents. White walls are often slightly yellow.
> 
> If you have a well calibrated monitor in a room with neutral colours and good-quality lighting, you might get really close by adjusting to taste but the tint is still really tricky to get right even with practice. What I prefer to do nowadays is not go for correct white balance and just edit a series to visual similarity. Unless it is one of my more elaborate portrait setups with flashes, backgrounds and stuff, but there I tend to just trust the colour stability of my Elinchroms.


So much work when it's so quick and easy to do a light source profile with a Colorchecker and get it spot on.


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## ahsanford (Nov 23, 2017)

Pippan said:


> So much work when it's so quick and easy to do a light source profile with a Colorchecker and get it spot on.



Understood, but when 99% of this enthusiast's work is not in controlled lighting conditions and those conditions are constantly changing, using a color checker is 100% off the table. 

Full respect for professionals who do it right, but I don't do portraiture sessions or studio work. I live my life and my camera comes along. Nothing is scripted, planned, or offers the time to do the make the proper technical decisions, and if I tell my subject (who I may honestly not know) that they just need to hold this doodad for me, the moment and shot is lost. It all must be managed in post on a shot by shot basis for me.

- A


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## Pippan (Nov 23, 2017)

ahsanford said:


> Understood, but when 99% of this enthusiast's work is not in controlled lighting conditions and those conditions are constantly changing, using a color checker is 100% off the table.
> 
> Full respect for professionals who do it right, but I don't do portraiture sessions or studio work. I live my life and my camera comes along. Nothing is scripted, planned, or offers the time to do the make the proper technical decisions, and if I tell my subject (who I may honestly not know) that they just need to hold this doodad for me, the moment and shot is lost. It all must be managed in post on a shot by shot basis for me.
> 
> - A


Understood if your light source is always different. Most of my pictures are made outside in and around the national parks I take tourists to. For nearly all of these the light source is the sun; one Colorchecker shot around midday does me for the day's photos (well, maybe one for shade too) and keeps golden hour looking golden. As the sun's light is always the same (although affected by atmospherics), yesterday's Colorchecker shot will do for today if I forget. Or last year's. And it takes into account sensor sensitivity to different wavelengths, lens coatings, filters etc. 

I still occasionally tweak it to taste, it just helps if I start with it spot on.


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## Viggo (Nov 23, 2017)

It doesn’t need to be a hassle.

I make a daylight profile for all my lenses, than a profile with my Siros L light, then a tungsten etc etc. So before even
Shooting I have the profiles for that light at home. And if the sources are mixed I can do another sample or simply use the one that’s closest to the dominant source.

Then when shooting I just bring my CBL wb tool, small light and can take rain and a beating. And if something happens fast, I just get the shot not worrying about wb or anything else, then when I have the shot I take custom wb sample on the same spot and eyedrop that later when I get home. Perfect wb and color done the easy way.


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## LDS (Nov 23, 2017)

CanonFanBoy said:


> I have no idea why the color isn't right when I post here. It never is. If I click on the photo it is fine. Otherwise, yuck!



The images are PNGs - if you click them you get the JPEGs - probably something goes wrong when the PNGs are generated, or they lack color profile information.

I see your JPEGs are in ProPhoto RGB, usually not a good choice for posting images on the internet, usually it's better to convert them to sRGB - after all most monitor can't show anything larger, and I don't know if common OS have a ProPhoto RGB ICC profile for the conversion available.


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## stevelee (Nov 24, 2017)

I think browsers tend to assume sRGB color space. Safari and maybe others are capable of color management if you include a color profile it can read. But for the most part, the safest move for the web is to post sRGB pictures. JPEGs and PNGs produced by the "save for web" modules in Photoshop tend to use sRGB as the default, whatever the original is in.


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## Tyroop (Nov 24, 2017)

Seems a bit early to be decorating Christmas trees, but I haven't lived in a country that celebrates Christmas for a long a time so I'm probably out of touch. I will soon face pressure from my kids to erect a tree, but I wasn't planning to do it until next month!


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## LDS (Nov 24, 2017)

stevelee said:


> I think browsers tend to assume sRGB color space. Safari and maybe others are capable of color management if you include a color profile it can read.



Main PC browsers (Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari) today are AFAIK color managed, at least on platforms were color management is enabled by default (it is in Windows and macOS, on some Linux you may have to enable it). Hope they all support also v4 profiles now, not only v2. IE11 does, In Firefox you may have to enable explicitly v4 profiles support. Don't know about Chrome and Safari.

On tablet and smartphones, the latest version should be color managed as well - older ones may be not.

You can test your browser(s) here: http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/


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## Ozarker (Nov 24, 2017)

I'm still looking for my Expodisk. Most everything I have is packed up for the move. Got back from Texas tuesday and went through my raw photos. I used the eyedropper method and I am very happy with the results. Adjusting the WB made things a whole lot easier. Don't mind the text in the photos. Did that for my daughter. I need to make sure I have the depth of field right. Too shallow in some of these.

Got the color management fixed. Thank all of you for your help.


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## Ozarker (Nov 24, 2017)

Tyroop said:


> Seems a bit early to be decorating Christmas trees, but I haven't lived in a country that celebrates Christmas for a long a time so I'm probably out of touch. I will soon face pressure from my kids to erect a tree, but I wasn't planning to do it until next month!



We've always decorated right after Thanksgiving. This is a few days early as they were leaving for Mississippi the next day. It's also my grandson's first Christmas, so my daughter is a little excited.


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## sanj (Nov 24, 2017)

drmikeinpdx said:


> sanj said:
> 
> 
> > Shooting in RAW and correcting in post has worked for me 98% of the time.
> ...



Yes of course. Or it will end up looking bland. Same analogy with sunsets...


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## stevelee (Nov 24, 2017)

LDS said:


> stevelee said:
> 
> 
> > I think browsers tend to assume sRGB color space. Safari and maybe others are capable of color management if you include a color profile it can read.
> ...



I just tried that test with Safari on my iPad. It passed all the tests except for the “how far” red, and to a slight extent the green.


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