# What is white balance and what's the correct way to use it?



## Synomis192 (Oct 24, 2012)

After purchasing a non-mfg lens, I've noticed that a lot of my photos have become warmer. I kind of preferred the cool blue color of my kit lens but it's not too bothersome. I've noticed that my camera has something called wb shift/bkrt option. After playing around with the menu, I'm still a bit confused about white balance in general. 

What is the correct white balance for photos? Like what's natural and unnatural looking. How can you determine if the whites are truely white and the colors are really the colors that are actually the real colors? And does white balance really matter if I'm shooting raw since corrections on PP are available?


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 24, 2012)

Synomis192 said:


> What is the correct white balance for photos? Like what's natural and unnatural looking. How can you determine if the whites are truely white and the colors are really the colors that are actually the real colors? And does white balance really matter if I'm shooting raw since corrections on PP are available?



It's subjective. Some prefer warmer tones, others cooler, depending on the shot. People are used to warner light indoors, so sometimes truly accurate WB under tungsten looks cold. 

WB doesn't really matter if you shoot RAW, as far as the image goes. There is a possible indirect effect if you use the review image/histogram to judge and change exposure, since the review image/histogram are based on the in-camera jpg conversion (even for RAW) and too warm a WB may show as saturation of some colors that really aren't, and you may choose to underexpose a bit because of that. 

If you want accurate, shoot a white balance target (SpyderCube, WhiBal, etc.) or a gray card, and use that to set the WB during RAW processing. If you want complete color accuracy, use something like an X-rite ColorChecker Passport.


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## Synomis192 (Oct 24, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> Synomis192 said:
> 
> 
> > What is the correct white balance for photos? Like what's natural and unnatural looking. How can you determine if the whites are truely white and the colors are really the colors that are actually the real colors? And does white balance really matter if I'm shooting raw since corrections on PP are available?
> ...



Wow, thanks for that fast reply neuro. I kind of understand white balance now. I'll look into grabbing a white balance target. I've read somewhere that RAW isn't actually an image file it's something else. It was in Scott kelby's book I think. 

Ps, Yknow, You're so cool your nick name should be Tugg (since.. Yknow. Tungsten is cool... Tugg... Cool? No? Okay?)


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## verysimplejason (Oct 25, 2012)

Yup, a gray card will do it.  Shooting in Raw also helps in correcting it during post-process.


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## marekjoz (Oct 25, 2012)

Setting a "correct" WB for a picture is challenging, as Neuro has written - it's subjective. 
If you will set your WB in the current scene according to the grey card before the shot you will most likely have the correct WB if light will not change between calibration and final shooting.
If you shoot RAW and have a grey card in the scene at your target, and in PP you will pick WB from the card, then in most cases it will be most accurate, neutral and objective WB. But it happens, that you have in your scene parts which are more and less lit. If you would have two grey cards in your scene - one in the shadow and one in the light then it may happen, that those WBs would differ. Sometimes instead of the grey card you can choose white object as a source of WB but it can be more misleading. It complicates even more when you have light sources of different temperature on your photo. Your brain will in most cases still properly interprete colours in the real life scene but on the photo you can get complete strange effects. This is something I'm talking about: http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=2470.0 I was challenging a few months ago looking for some methods I wouldn't know before.

It happens that when I am now trying to set the correct WB for photos taken ie outside in the early afternoon, so the photo would look like when I remember it, then it begins to be too strange sometimes (ie too warm as there are yellow and red leaves) so I have to be make reasonable adjustments in PP not to change it the wrong direction. I would like green to look green (and not much blue) and warm to look warm, but when you have a scene lit with sunlight reflected from colorful leaves, then it is still challenging for me. In such cases I think that even a grey card will give you different WBs depending where you would put your grey card in the scene.


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## gbchriste (Oct 25, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> No it is not subjective: Correct white balance means that a white, gray, black or full gray scale surface is displayed without discoloration and have the same RGB values from the whitest down to black and .
> One should distinguish between the use of gray cards that are more suited for exposure and a card where the white balance should be made towards a value around R 220 G 220 B220 and that the card has such metamerism characteristics that a white balance can be made in different color temperatures.
> Then that the image results do not fit is a subjective evaluation .



Great response from Mikael. Too many people just glibly talk about a "grey card" for white balance. They go on eBay, buy a $5 piece of grey cardboard, try to use that to do white balance, and end up with something that looks really dreadful. While this grey pieces of garbage may be fine for setting exposure because they are the middle tone that the meter expects, they are often times dreadfully bad for setting white balance.

Do use such an aid for white balance, it needs to be something that is specifically manufuactured for that purpose. I use the Lastolite EZBalance. It has the benefit of being perfectly suited for both exposure and white balance. Personally, I do a custom in camera white balance by shooting and image of the EZBalance filling the frame, and then using the custom white balance functions of the camera to adjust according to that image.

Even if shooting raw you need to worry about this. The camera will apply some sort of white balance adjustment to your raw file, whether you want it to or not. That's what all of the Tungsten, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Flourescent, Auto White Balance, etc etc settings on the camera do. And while those can be close, they won't be perfectly neutral. And it takes a very finally trained and perceptive eye to be able to look at one of these images on the screen and know with percision how much Temperature and Tint to adjust to get it back to neutral. 

By setting the camera white balance to a custom level by shooting my EZBalance, every image I take that comes off the camera down to Lightroom has whites, greys and blacks that are balanced - equal amounts of Red, Green, Blue. From there I can cool it down or warm it up for taste, but I'm not having to make large adjustments for correction. 

Get that white balance nailed and you'll reduce your post processing work flow by a huge amount.


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## PeterJ (Oct 25, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Best results do we get from a card with for example four different surfaces from black to white so that we can adjust curves towards more points than one grey.
> And if the WB results not fit the taste - that is a subjective opinion and we can adjust cooler,warmer etc .


Can someone explain from a practical point of view how you'd use the four points in Lightroom or in-camera or do you need Photoshop? I have a set of cards with white / grey / black and had only every used the grey, I wondered what the others were about. I've only ever seen the one colour temperature to adjust, so I can see now what they should be like, but not sure what I'd do if say white was perfect but black wasn't?

Anyway to the OP I'm clearly not an expert, but one additional time you have to be really careful with white balance is in gallery / photoset situations where each photo by itself might look great but put ten side by side containing the same objects / clothes etc and it's immediately obvious something is 'wrong' even to a non-critical eye.


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## marekjoz (Oct 25, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> *No it is not subjective:* Correct white balance means that a white, gray, black or full gray scale surface is displayed without discoloration and have the same RGB values from the whitest down to black .
> One should distinguish between the use of gray cards that are more suited for exposure and not white balance and a card where the white balance should be made towards whiter area with a value around R 220 G 220 B220, . The cards should also have such metamerism characteristics that a white balance can be made in different color temperatures.
> Best results do we get from a card with for example four different surfaces from black to white so that we can adjust curves towards more points than one grey.
> And if the WB results not fit the taste - that is a subjective opinion and we can adjust cooler,warmer etc .



I use ColorChecker also for camera calibration in place and it still doesn't matter, because until you don't work in studio or with fully controlled light you get anyway the correct WB just in a place where you check it at specific angle and not for the whole scene. Since I have found out that, my workflow is much simpler because i simply don't use it everywhere nor always 
Seriously - if you control the light, it helps a lot. If you don't have too much influence on that, then in most cases it's just a matter of taste. 
Theoretically - you are right. In practice if you are a pro then go outside, measure the current temperature of the natural light, set your external lights to the same temperature, cast your light form ideal white or silver surfaces and then it makes sense. If your target has an ideal objective white balance with proper skin tones but the rest is ugly, then what a sense makes setting the WB to the correct WB just in this place? 
What is the correct objective white balance in a scene with light sources having different temperature? What is the correct objective WB on the soccer field in the late afternoon when the external lights are on and have of course a different temperature than the sun at the sunset? You have three players in a frame and each of them is differently lit? I'd like to know it myself because neither of: set K, grey card, colorchecker (light changes through 90 minutes), auto, daylight or shadow help. And of course obtaining WB from white shirts of the players doesn't help, because it changes drammatically depending on the angle of the shirt exposed to either light, distance to the light and amount of the shadow on the shirt giving in the end different tones of the green, but correct tones of the skin etc.


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## zim (Oct 25, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> *No it is not subjective:* Correct white balance means that a white, gray, black or full gray scale surface is displayed without discoloration and have the same RGB values from the whitest down to black .
> One should distinguish between the use of gray cards that are more suited for exposure and not white balance and a card where the white balance should be made towards whiter area with a value around R 220 G 220 B220, . The cards should also have such metamerism characteristics that a white balance can be made in different color temperatures.
> Best results do we get from a card with for example four different surfaces from black to white so that we can adjust curves towards more points than one grey.
> And if the WB results not fit the taste - that is a subjective opinion and we can adjust cooler,warmer etc .



So it is subjective ;D


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## paul13walnut5 (Oct 25, 2012)

+1 for qpcard.

And no, it is not subjective. It is a science. And it was a scientist from my home town that devised the Kelvin Scale.

We could say, yeah, it's subjective. We could say that yeah, I like the way sodium renders everything orange and I don't want to know how to fix it. We could say that. But as you asked the question, it's not very helpful.

I take WB seriously because I do video, and in video, more often than in stills you need to mix and match different types of light, you can rarely rely on presets because flourescent tubes are all different, a tungsten light thats been on for 30seconds is different from a tungsten light thats been on for half an hour, because sunlight at 11am is different from sunlight at 1pm or 4pm...

I might have a flouro softbox for fill, a tungsten red for set, and it may be beyond my control that there is also a skylight over the location.

So I will get up on the step ladders and tape some Lee CTO to the glass. I will draw the side curtains. I will put an FLO gel over the softlight. This is because my producer, my client will not like 'subjective' results, the colourist will not like subjective results. The camera will not like subjective results. The viewer will not like subjective results.

So I take colour temperature a bit more seriously than most.

It is not an effect.

Old adage. Camera 101 time. Get it right in the camera and add the effect in post.

I'm not wishing to patronise the OP, as they asked a worthwhile question in earnest, but I'll happily correct [email protected] like 'it's subjective'.

Some (hopefully useful basics)

The camera has not a clue what colour of light the subject is under. A single colour subject with no reference will confuse a camera set to AWB.

So an Orange will usually come out wrong. The sea will usually come out wrong.

So you tell the camera what colour temperature of the ambient light is.

You can do this *A *using the kelvin scale (if your camera supports this, and your confident how many Kelvins match candlelight, shade, sun at midday) 

You can do this *B* using the cameras WB set function (shamefully clumsy on canons, no excuse for it in these days of live view, should be as easy as video manual WB) find a neutral white or grey subject under the same light as your subject (bleached copier paper is usually fine, a paving slab or even magnolia painted wall is close enough) For deliberately filtered light, say at a rock concert, then the next step may work better...

Or you can *C* choose a close preset. This way a deliberately red light appears red as intended... 

YOU SHOULD DO ONE OF THESE STEPS WHETHER YOU SHOOT IN RAW OR JPEG. RAW CAN CORRECT SO MUCH. GETTING IT RIGHT IN THE FILE MAKES IT EASIER TO RECOVER.

By all means tweak it in post, to your subjective tastes. But do try to get it right in camera, or at least close.

Like Mikael I use the QP card, particularly on two / multi camera shoots. I will filter match my lights and any other light sources, then set up manual WB with a grey card, and then record a test clip with greyscale QP card in vision.

This is probably too much for most, but it is worth reading up a little on colour temperature just so as to understand better what will help your camera and help your images.

At the sensor stage it should be anything but subjective. Get it right at the camera and you can grade and tweak away. Get it _subjective_ly wrong at the camera and you may find that it can never quite be recovered.


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## NotABunny (Oct 25, 2012)

The summary is that (in photo-editing software) white balance is used to make what you know is white (like a photographed white shirt) look white on your display.

But in reality, white balance is an incomplete way of describing what color really is. The complete way is to use the spectral power distribution of the light hitting the subject, atmospheric conditions, sensor and display spectral calibration, the spectral power distribution of the light hitting the display, and finally the (natural) calibration of the human eye.

Simplistically, the white balance defines how perceived white (cooler or warmer, as you've said, with an orange or blue cast) is obtained.

The problem with its simplicity is that the illuminating light is actually changing the color balance of a subject (which is a photo on a display / paper), so if you change the white balance to get white, all colors change, not just white. By this I mean that you should not try to make a white shirt look white in a photo of a subject taken indoors under fluorescent light because then you would get green skin.

The reason why white balance is subjective is because a photographer can use it to change the look of his photos as he sees fit. The reason why it is objective is because there are standards to follow (the so called science). But truly, at the very core of physics, beyond human biology and standardized spectra, white does not exist as an absolute / objective concept. White is not like gravity, it's a human defined concept based on human perception and the light coming from our sun (for many millennia that have shaped our eyes).


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## bdunbar79 (Oct 25, 2012)

paul13walnut5 said:


> +1 for qpcard.
> 
> And no, it is not subjective. It is a science. And it was a scientist from my home town that devised the Kelvin Scale.
> 
> ...



Getting the WB wrong can't necessarily be fixed. With the 1DX I've gotten it wrong with mixed lighting sources and this will leave green tinted or pink tinted shadows that cannot be repaired in post, or if they can, not worth the copious amount of time to do so. So I agree, you gotta get it right.


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## NotABunny (Oct 26, 2012)

bdunbar79 said:


> Getting the WB wrong can't necessarily be fixed. With the 1DX I've gotten it wrong with mixed lighting sources and this will leave green tinted or pink tinted shadows that cannot be repaired in post, or if they can, not worth the copious amount of time to do so. So I agree, you gotta get it right.



In that case you can't get it right because the color balance was changed by the light. Each of those light sources has a different white point and a different color balance.

This is why white balance is a misleading concept. People start thinking that you can get the color balance right by changing the white balance. The only time when you can get it right is in standard light (like D65 light sources), because that's the context in which (human expected) color (balance) is defined. In any other case, you can only get an approximation whose accuracy depends on the spectral power distribution of all present light sources. In many cases it may be good enough, but in some cases it may make people think that they've done something wrong.

For mixed types of light, things like ColorPassport are better because they affect the color balance, not just the white balance. Differences may be significant even in broad daylight because sunlight is not really a D65 light, plus it varies constantly.

For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminant_D65 says that "D65 corresponds roughly to a midday sun in Western Europe / Northern Europe".


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## Synomis192 (Oct 26, 2012)

paul13walnut5 said:


> Old adage. Camera 101 time. Get it right in the camera and add the effect in post.
> 
> I'm not wishing to patronise the OP, as they asked a worthwhile question in earnest, but I'll happily correct [email protected] like 'it's subjective'.
> 
> ...



I would love to have that much control over Kelvin to actually see and get the results I want but being the owner of a consumer dslr the white balance settings are very dumbed down. And the wb shft/brkt was added but made things a little more complicated than it needed to be. I get the chance to play with Kelvin because my camera has MAGICLANTERN installed. But it's too complicated to go through all those menus and adjust on the fly. I was just inquiring about a way to fix wb on the go. I'm not poking fun at you sir, I respect your response because you've given me a larger insight on white balance (along with many users here [thanks guys]), but I don't have the time to climb ladders to adjust my non-existent professional lighting equipment and gels. I don't have a 30'x30 soft box or multiple gels at my disposal. I'm just trying to find a solution where I can work with what I have, which is my camera and Lightroom.


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 26, 2012)

Synomis192 said:


> I'm just trying to find a solution where I can work with what I have, which is my camera and Lightroom.



Thus, I repeat - get a WhiBal or SpyderCube (I like the latter because it also offers deep black and specular highlight references for exposure, but the WhiBal is flat), include it in a picture, shoot RAW, dropper it to set WB in post for the series of shots in the same light.


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## Synomis192 (Oct 26, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> Synomis192 said:
> 
> 
> > I'm just trying to find a solution where I can work with what I have, which is my camera and Lightroom.
> ...



I'll definitely grab a whibal soon, probably by next week. I've been eyeing certain models but I'm unsure of what to get. That sypdercube looks cute, I'll invest in one so I can play around with it blacks are kind of mt main worry point because I can never understand the true color of black. Not getting it because of looks though I promise. I'll make a post once I do. Neuro, I expect you to be the first reply hahaha. Not really 

What about those white


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## Sith Zombie (Oct 26, 2012)

Just in case the op is getting confused, white balancing is basically getting your camera to see colours the way your eyes do in different types of light. Making sure white is white and not leaning towards either end of colour temperature [cool or warm]
For example: if you are in a room with white walls, wether your light source is a bulb or sunlight from the window, the walls will appear white because your brain does the white balancing. A camera will see a blue or orange hue, depending on the type of light and the white balance settings that are being used. 
Auto white balance can generally do a decent job and Raw allows you to change the white balance but it's one of the things I like to have control of in camera, wether to use it artistically or not.


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## marekjoz (Oct 26, 2012)

I would share some experiences and give you some advices to avoid difficult choices later:

1. Shoot RAW, correct WB in PP.

2. To have better insight in PP, before shooting use some grey card - anything from the above suggest list of accessories to get the WB reference

3. Don't change lightning between calibration and shooting because it will change your WB setting. If you use ambient light a little different than the main source, even changing ISO and shutter speed will influence your WB reference

3. Avoid shooting at lights having different temperature:
a) in rooms the tv can cast a strong lighting changing instantly - turn the tv off when shooting because no grey card will help you if the tv's light has an influence on subjects on the photo
b) if you have to use ordinary bulb lights and flash at the same time, try to get most lighting with the flash or the opposite way (avoid mixing different lights in similar proportions, unless you really know what you do). You can achieve this by setting the flash to ETTL and camera to low ISO, 1/200s casting the light from the ceiling (if white or natural grey)m- this makes more light from the flash than ambient. This will cause the flash to fire with more power and will override the ambient light from the bulbs having different temperature and making mess. You can first fire flash in manual mode with full power (M 1/1) to check what are its the capabilities in your current situation. The opposite situation - to get only some enlighting fom the flash will be achieved with opposite settings - high ISO, low shutter speed, ETTL mode. This you can check by setting (M/128) on your flash and setting all the other exposure parameters accordingly.
c) candles, tungsten, bulbs, flash are sources of difeerent temperature so will give you different WB settings. Try to avoid mixing them
d) some fluorescent bulbs blink with 50 or 60 Hz frequency. If you will shoot with shutter speeds above 1/30s you can be surprised how different your photos will be depending on which moment of the bulb's phase you have pressed the shutter 

4. On your final photo try to find a natural WB reference - white or natural grey material which can serve as the WB reference. It helps often just to pick it.

5. When you do not control your light in most cases you will just have some kind of compromise...


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## PeterJ (Oct 26, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Here is a article written by Stefan Ohlsson the swedish Bruce Frazer and color handling educator for professional photographers http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url
> 
> One of mine pictures from Cape Town are in the article and showing the differences in colors and problems with for example over saturation red colors in different profiles


I agree with you the SpyderCheckr photo on that page does look the best. It looks the most vibrant and almost jumps out from the page.


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## bdunbar79 (Oct 26, 2012)

NotABunny said:


> bdunbar79 said:
> 
> 
> > Getting the WB wrong can't necessarily be fixed. With the 1DX I've gotten it wrong with mixed lighting sources and this will leave green tinted or pink tinted shadows that cannot be repaired in post, or if they can, not worth the copious amount of time to do so. So I agree, you gotta get it right.
> ...



Thanks. My situation pertains to indoor volleyball, in terrible lighting. I took 4 different WB readings at 4 different parts of the court, and got 4 different readings, and it mattered big time. So I agree with you that it is ultimately color balance, with which rapid changing action and parts of the court, this may be something that cannot be remedied and I'll have to do the best I can both during shooting and in post. Indoor gyms sometimes are terrible for good photography. I just hate to spend an hour on each photo when I have 90 of them to get the color balance right if it's wrong. I could also simply pick 10 of the absolute best, fix those up, and print those vs. trying to make a DVD full of printable photos. Maybe make the DVD "as best as I can get it within reason" then print maybe 10 of those shots with more time spent in post. It's really challenging compared to outdoors, where I have to do very little. How have you guys handled this?


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## marekjoz (Oct 26, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> Here is a article written by Stefan Ohlsson the swedish Bruce Frazer and color handling educator for professional photographers http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url
> 
> One of mine pictures from Cape Town are in the article and showing the differences in colors and problems with for example over saturation red colors in different profiles



There is something in this, that using serious tools you still achieve different results. One would expect, that serious tools should lead to objective, similar results. The problem with this which I see is: should the result be the most accurate - most similar to the live spectator of the event or it should be the most entertaining for the final photo viewer?
Since the results achieved are so different, I still find it as a problem in more subjective than objective matter, as final results may be quite differently graded by the final viewers.
I agree of course, that using tools gives you serious advantage over only subjective eye justice, but anyway - what you will finally do with it will be just your own vision and personal taste.


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## neuroanatomist (Oct 26, 2012)

Mikael Risedal said:


> WHY?
> QP-CARD incl profiling software cost 2 dollars more, and in none of your products (what I can se) we can make a own profile in less then 5 sec and in the shooting light and get better color accuracy. The profiles in the raw converters are not as well written for indoors light as you can generate by qp-card and by your self



Because the QPCard is heavy paper, and it will quickly become a crumpled mess if I carry it around in my camera bag. I can shoot with flash in the rain, and that's mixed lighting. A wet piece of paper won't work well in that scenario. 



marekjoz said:


> There is something in this, that using serious tools you still achieve different results. One would expect, that serious tools should lead to objective, similar results.



This is a key point. I agree that there is such a thing as 'correct' WB and color balance, but achieving it in practice is not simple.


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## RLPhoto (Oct 26, 2012)

WB is a completely subjective thing but generally, You want it accurate. 

Different Light sources give out different shades of light, Tungsten is more orange, Florescent is greenish, daylight is bluer, Flash is always 5600K Etc.

The tint control allows you to tweak the Green-magenta to fine tune the color more. 

You can Lie about the true colors on a scene with mixed lighting to impressive results.


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## NotABunny (Oct 27, 2012)

bdunbar79 said:


> My situation pertains to indoor volleyball, in terrible lighting. I took 4 different WB readings at 4 different parts of the court, and got 4 different readings, and it mattered big time. ... I just hate to spend an hour on each photo when I have 90 of them to get the color balance right if it's wrong. ... How have you guys handled this?



I shoot RAW, in available light, never bother with custom white balance (because my shooting is too dynamic, especially when you consider that the lighting at 1/200 seconds has phases of different colors), and correct everything in post, shot by shot. However, with normal indoors lighting, the white balance can be corrected in bulk. But the really nice shots, I correct manually.


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## mirekti (Nov 4, 2012)

Has anybody tried using Expodisc? Apparently produces great results, but it is a bit expensive, though.

I remember I read somewhere that even though one can correct WB in post it sometimes leads to wrong colors afterwards. Like, changing WB in post doesn't treat all colors the same, for example blue becomes darker blue while red doesn't and I belive some cast was mentioned. Does anybody have an idea about this issue?


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## Quasimodo (Nov 4, 2012)

mirekti said:


> Has anybody tried using Expodisc? Apparently produces great results, but it is a bit expensive, though.
> 
> I remember I read somewhere that even though one can correct WB in post it sometimes leads to wrong colors afterwards. Like, changing WB in post doesn't treat all colors the same, for example blue becomes darker blue while red doesn't and I belive some cast was mentioned. Does anybody have an idea about this issue?



I have one for 77mm thread. It works great, but I found that using a normal A4 sheet of paper or a napkin does the job as well. Save the money for something else


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## bycostello (Nov 5, 2012)

easy to fix in Lightroom.. just use the pipette tool


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## trygved (Nov 5, 2012)

I've found great results with this particular WB lens cap
http://www.ebay.com/itm/77mm-White-Balance-Lens-Cap-For-Canon-Sony-Nokin-Lens-/280680216117?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4159d83635

The construction is as cheap as the price, but the functionality is great.
It renders the WB just a _smidge_ warm, which I prefer.

I've tried two other types of WB lens caps, and find them wildly unreliable.
They have a version of this cap that I haven't tried, as it is like 50 some-odd dollars, but this appears to be the same thing.

Being able to grab the camera and run is important to me, which is also a factor.
I loathe toting stuff around.


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## slowcar1DX (Nov 5, 2012)

just wondering if expodisc is any good for setting WB...

http://www.expoimaging.com/product-overview.php?cat_id=1

Thx!


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## trygved (Nov 5, 2012)

slowcar1DX said:


> just wondering if expodisc is any good for setting WB...
> 
> http://www.expoimaging.com/product-overview.php?cat_id=1
> 
> Thx!



I've used a knockoff of this unit and it was the worst of the batch.
Could have been the cheap materials or whatever, but it provided a ridiculously cold WB, sometimes tinting it purple.


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## NotABunny (Nov 5, 2012)

mirekti said:


> Has anybody tried using Expodisc? Apparently produces great results, but it is a bit expensive, though.
> 
> I remember I read somewhere that even though one can correct WB in post it sometimes leads to wrong colors afterwards. Like, changing WB in post doesn't treat all colors the same, for example blue becomes darker blue while red doesn't and I belive some cast was mentioned. Does anybody have an idea about this issue?



The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.


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## mirekti (Nov 5, 2012)

NotABunny said:


> The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.



But I read somwhere that cameras collect data for different channels RGB and than applies WB. Too technical for me so maybe I explained it wrong. However, some say that even though one can play with WB in post it is not as precise as one would hit it the very first time.

My idea of using expodisc was a bit different than suggested. I'd like to use it in a room with multiple sources so I woud just point at the scene not each source and help camere make a good balance. Does this make sense?


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## Quasimodo (Nov 5, 2012)

mirekti said:


> NotABunny said:
> 
> 
> > The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.
> ...



Just my two cents:

I my mind it makes sense, whether you use a Lastolite, like shown over (could very well be better than expodisc, but bigger to carry around by the looks of it (it is not like you don't have enough to carry around if you're doing a shoot)). I have a warm expodisc and it works great. However when I have forgotten it, I have often just used a regular xerox paper (they are not perfect white), or a recycled napkin (brown/greyish) and it works great too. If anything goes wrong in your opinion, you can fix it in pp. 

The way I do it (and I am not a professional in the sense that this is my main income), is that I put the expodisc on the lens and shoot at the person's face very close to get the best reading. If you are using strobes or Speedlights, you would want to have a remote trigger (ST-E2, or ST-E3 if you have the 600 RT EX, youngno, or Pocket wizard or whatever). The reason you would want a remote trigger is that if you use a 580 or 600 as a master it will (not sure if they can trigger without emitting light?) cast light when you are standing next to your subject to get a reading, and that will affect the reading in a wrong direction. If you have the remote, you put up the flashes where you want them, then trigger them while taking a reading next to the subject, and then put in the reading as your custom white balance. If you don't have a expodisc, lastolite, cube or whatever, try with a xerox paper. What I do is to turn of the AF on the lens, put the paper right next to their face, make sure the lens is out of focus, take a shot, and it immediatly becomes better than the AWB will give you in my experience. 

G.


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## NotABunny (Nov 6, 2012)

mirekti said:


> NotABunny said:
> 
> 
> > The camera's WB doesn't affect RAW images, so that's possible only if the camera outputs JEPG whose WB processing algorithm is "better" than that of computer processing software.
> ...



Sense it makes, it may also be good enough, but it's not going to properly fix the color balance. That's because color is not given by the object, but by the light that hits the object and is reflected by it. I know that people are taught that objects have color, but that's simply wrong. Light has color and objects reflect a part of the light spectrum, with various intensities. For instance, if you have what you think is a purely red object that's illuminated by purely blue light, you'll see the object appear black, that is, it absorbs the light. So what is the correct color of the object? The one you think it is.

In the case of multiple light sources, you get a varying mix of seriously weird colors (coming from light bulbs).


Details here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Also see there white the green-magenta correct is available:


> white balance uses a second variable in addition to color temperature: the green-magenta shift. Adjusting the green-magenta shift is often unnecessary under ordinary daylight, however fluorescent and other artificial lighting may require significant green-magenta adjustments to the WB.



What is not clear from that phrase is that the correction is necessary because the color balance was affected more in those areas of the spectrum, so that needs to be compensated separately than the rest of the color balance. This still doesn't describe all the differences in color from what a human expects, but it makes things good enough.

Also note that since the light spectrum reflected by the objects is not what the camera sensor was designed for (which is likely to be D65), you'll loose a lot of tonal definition, so color corrections in those areas of the spectrum will produce seriously noisy results.

Things like white discs may be used with good results if the light is consistent, so will not need to change the WB for each shot. But if that white disc will produce photos with white walls and shirts but people with orange or green skin, you should know that it nobody's fault - it's just the light.


This article is very good in explaining practically white / color balance and its perception by humans: http://www.ianplant.com/photo-tips-how-to-white-balance.htm


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## Zv (Dec 4, 2012)

See also my blog post on WB here -

http://zeebytes.blogspot.jp/2012/09/photography-101-white-balance.html?m=1


It also includes step by step info on setting a custom WB and simple explanations.


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## RustyTheGeek (Dec 5, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> marekjoz said:
> 
> 
> > There is something in this, that using serious tools you still achieve different results. One would expect, that serious tools should lead to objective, similar results.
> ...





RLPhoto said:


> WB is a completely subjective thing but generally, You want it accurate.
> 
> Different Light sources give out different shades of light, Tungsten is more orange, Florescent is greenish, daylight is bluer, Flash is always 5600K Etc.
> 
> ...



Way back, I shot a bunch of pics in an old gym with lots of kids playing dodgeball. The pictures looked terrible because of the light. Super old mercury vapor lights. Very weird color I couldn't totally fix in post. So I looked into getting WB right in camera. Fast forward to today... I usually just use the camera settings and tweak in Lightroom. OTOH, when I shoot in that gym or I shoot an important event like a wedding, I use the WB tool. Why not? I've got it. But most times, I don't even have it with me.

It sounds like you want a simple answer to a rather complex question. The real question is what are your photography needs/goals for the images? Go back and read the posts by *neuro* and *RLPhoto*. That's real world common sense. (The rest is solid and factual, very interesting but likely overkill for your needs.) I think if you are like 90% of us and if you choose a WB tool, expodisc, WB LensCap, WhiBal, LastoLite, SpyderCube, Spirograph or Twister (with nice color dots), you'll be happy. Get it as close as you can in camera, tweak it in Lightroom. In most cases, simply keeping your camera set consistently (avoid AWB) will save time in post. That's what I do. Save the elegant WB calibration solutions like above for important but complicated mixed light scenarios and high expectations. Don't overthink it unless you are shooting thousand dollar images in a studio for clients that are going to color match the images. And if that's the case, you'll be learning how to use gels and filters, believe me!

*RLPhoto* has a point. This is about achieving a certain result based in part on accuracy and in part on what YOU like. I think we've ALL been obsessed with WB at one time or another and then eventually drift back to just using the camera settings most of the time. Learn and know how to use custom WB on your camera and be good at it but don't miss shots or reduce the fun of it by obsessing too much with WB unless the needs/goals for the images dictate/demand the extra effort.


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## dirtcastle (Dec 5, 2012)

I'm definitely in the "subjective" camp on how to approach white balance. But I don't argue with the kelvin scale or those who want an accurate/realistic white balance.

When I'm out shooting, the light temperature can be all over the place. And when I'm editing, I tend to think of the white balance sliders as creative tools, rather than "correction" tools. Sometimes, a life-like white balance works for me, but because I use split toning and HSL so much... the idea of being "realistic" gets tossed out the window.

Ultimately, I think the key is to have good monitor calibration, so regardless of your white balance preference, you know what your shots will look like when people see them. I regularly see color shifts and eye fatigue and editing room lighting can also throw off the end results.


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## AmbientLight (Dec 5, 2012)

My aim is always to reproduce colours looking as natural as possible. Therefore I fully agree with Mikael Risedal and Paul13Walnut5 to get it right in-camera. Using something like QPCard isn't taking up much time, so that is what I do. You can always tweak colours to your heart's content later on.


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## PeterJ (Dec 5, 2012)

B&W and be there


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## RustyTheGeek (Dec 5, 2012)

dirtcastle said:


> I'm definitely in the "subjective" camp on how to approach white balance. But I don't argue with the kelvin scale or those who want an accurate/realistic white balance.
> 
> When I'm out shooting, the light temperature can be all over the place. And when I'm editing, I tend to think of the white balance sliders as creative tools, rather than "correction" tools. Sometimes, a life-like white balance works for me, but because I use split toning and HSL so much... the idea of being "realistic" gets tossed out the window.
> 
> Ultimately, I think the key is to have good monitor calibration, so regardless of your white balance preference, you know what your shots will look like when people see them. I regularly see color shifts and eye fatigue and editing room lighting can also throw off the end results.



*+1 & Ditto!*


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## neuroanatomist (Dec 5, 2012)

dirtcastle said:


> I tend to think of the white balance sliders as creative tools, rather than "correction" tools.



Agreed. Plus...I'm lazy! Why should I get up at 4am to catch that lovely pink sunrise lighting, when I can sleep in and just adjust temp and tint?!? :


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## RustyTheGeek (Dec 5, 2012)

There is also the almost separate discussion about art. Let's face it, it's FUN to create amazing images using flash gels, various filters, etc. And it's sometimes necessary to use those same tools to correct WB in tricky lighting situations. Joe McNally refers to many times he has used filter/gel combos to correct for weird lighting at the shoot. An example might be a magenta filter and green gel for mixed flourescent lighting with flash, etc.

The better photographer can determine what is impossible in post and what can be corrected with no worries. Personally, most of the time when I'm on the go I concentrate on framing/composition, focus and things I can't fix in post. I can usually deal with WB in post. If I spend too much time worrying about WB, I will miss the shot being distracted changing settings, etc. OTOH, if I am shooting portraits and spending 30 minutes on lighting anyway, I might as well spend another 30 seconds and get the WB right too.


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## RLPhoto (Dec 7, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> dirtcastle said:
> 
> 
> > I tend to think of the white balance sliders as creative tools, rather than "correction" tools.
> ...



Well, to a point I suppose. If you have mixed lighting like this, correcting for the wrong WB can yield more pleasing results or a completely different shot.

IE: The "Correct" WB is the one on the Left.


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 2, 2013)

hjulenissen said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
> 
> 
> > And no, it is not subjective. It is a science. And it was a scientist from my home town that devised the Kelvin Scale.
> ...



Hahaha!

What if the viewer is colour blind?

What if we are all slightly colour blind?

Did you not read the rest of my answer, or just choose to ignore the bits where I went onto say grade it etc in post?

White balance and colour temperature are technical concepts that exist and are provable and repeatable.

Subjective perception, not as much.

Happy new year, make it your resolution to get it right at the capture stage and play about with it later. Much easier than deliberately getting it wrong in camera and trying to fix it later.

"Color science is pretty much meaningless...". Good one, that!


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## Don Haines (Jan 2, 2013)

I carry around a Kodak color card I got way back in the film days..... top half neutral grey, bottom half color bars.

For things like sunlight or clouds I use the camera presets, they are usually close enough that an image can be easily adjusted to taste in lightroom. When I get confused with indoor lighting, I make a best guess at the settings, whip out the color card and take a shot of it, and then procede. When I get back I can use the color card shot to tell me what I need to adjust.

And shoot in raw.... you can change the color balance afterwards with raw files.... I have merrily snapped away dozens of photos before realizing that I had the balance set to tungsten BEFORE I moved outdoors and forgot to change it.... With RAW files you can correct that mistake.

Using the color card I was able to adjust white balance and hue until Fluffy turned white again....


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## Ew (Jan 7, 2013)

Excellent notes everyone. 

Lets not forget - we also need to calibrate our monitors and at times compensate for the final presentation. Be it a gallery, or a cinema (especially if were goibg to a film recorder and need to pass through lin-log/xyz conversions applying various luts depending on neg/pos stock.) Much like getting the right icc matching the printer and paper.


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 7, 2013)

It's a good point.

I generally have to scream in stage crews faces to get them to change the projector colour temp to match the room lighting.

Another good point is that I've just bought a calumet / prospec zipbalance.
Which is a bit more robust than my qpcard. Bigger too. And cheaper.


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## Sporgon (Jan 17, 2013)

Don Haines said:


> I carry around a Kodak color card I got way back in the film days..... top half neutral grey, bottom half color bars.
> 
> For things like sunlight or clouds I use the camera presets, they are usually close enough that an image can be easily adjusted to taste in lightroom. When I get confused with indoor lighting, I make a best guess at the settings, whip out the color card and take a shot of it, and then procede. When I get back I can use the color card shot to tell me what I need to adjust.
> 
> ...



Judging by the look on that cat's face you've either had it pose waaaaay too long, or asked it to pose for this sort of thing waaaaay too often ! ;D


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

hjulenissen said:


> Not sure what your point is? It is what it is, color is a subjectively derived term.



It's subjective for humans, imperical for cameras.



> "White balance" does not always easily get us the pictures that we remember, nor the pictures that we want. We are in it for the photography, are we not?



Absolutely in it for the photography, and for me, the videography. I understand fully that the technically correct white balance might not be the desired result, but lets walk before we run here, the OP asked about understanding white balance. 

Once you get to a certain level of competence with anything you can start to play about, break the rules with confidence and get an intended effect, but the rules, the science are where you start.



> I prefer to get my composition, focus etc right. Rather worry about things that can be fixed later.... later.
> 
> -h



I prefer to get it all right in camera. I'm coming from a video perspective I suppose, where I have 25 frames every second for up to 12 mins to fix. Easier to get it as right as possible in camera.

And I've found this approach helps my photography. In video I will spend time filtering different CT sources, running manual WB, recording a test strip with colour and gamma charts, I wouldn't expect most folk to do this with their stills, and I certainly don't.

The OP asked about white balance, answers like 'it's subjective' don't really tell them anything. Get the fundamentals in place and then start playing. I use Apple Color, I have Magic Bullet and Looks plug ins for FCP, Premiere and After-Effects, so I fully acknowledge the benefits of grading,and the impact this can have on the footage for the viewer, and so it follows for stills, but my starting point is always getting it neutral in camera, then I can do anything I like with it.

The grading might be subjective, but the science of colour temperature is anything but. Understanding that different light sources look different to an objective piece of apparatus like a camera is the first step to achieving the results you want, be these graded within in inch of their lives or otherwise.


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## bycostello (Jan 18, 2013)

use the white balance dropper in lightroom... even the white of an eye if there isn't anything else..


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## Don Haines (Jan 18, 2013)

Mikael Risedal said:


> I suggest that you get a modern grey card like www.qpcard.com with the best metamerism characteristics.
> Are you interested in color management then there are many good tips at the QP Card home page.
> I took the liberty to correct Fluffy, WB=RGB values corrected against the white patch instead, hope you do not mind



HOLY C**P!!!!! I posted the before picture!!!! Thanks!..... and this really proves the value of a color card.


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## rpt (Jan 18, 2013)

RickSpringfield said:


> Dear Original Poster,
> 
> If this is your first experience with White Balance ... stop looking at this post and immediately run into the other room where your significant other is sitting and give them a big hug. Then swiftly seize your camera and using whatever settings are full auto (green box) take a bunch of pictures. Burst, Timed, Horizontal, Vertical, anything. Then download them onto your computer and look at them together and talk about the great expressions, and the fun you had taking the pictures, and then go get an ice cream. When your done, come back home and snuggle and then right before bed, when you are sitting up reading a book... reach over, grab your camera, and snap another few pictures under the soft white light of the lamp on the nightstand. Maybe even splurge with a couple of hilarious self portraits together. Then go to bed and dream about how you'll look at these great pictures tomorrow.
> This is immensely important. If you don't do this, you'll be missing out on your last chance to take a picture and ... deep breath everyone ... not be critical of it. The fact is, white balance is an enormous rat hole. Once you start down this path you won't ever go back to that happy place where a sorta exposed, lamp lit, color suppresed, low contrast image will do. Oh no my friend, from now on its not about taking pictures ... its about taking pictures with grey cards and modifiers and obsessing about Kelvins. In fact, you wont even be able to walk into someones house without thinking 'You really should have used color balanced 5500k bulbs in those lamps with white shades'. And for awhile folks will think ... maybe he's got something there. But then after hanging out with you and your custom white balanced buddy's for a night, the rest of your friends will start to think ... 'Man, if I'm not wearing a shirt with a red ring on it or holding a grey card this guy doesn't even notice me'. And they couldn't be farther from the truth because you and I both know you for sure noticed them. In fact, you noticed they were lit with a 2700k soft white bulb from home depot and its not doing much for their skin tones.
> ...


LOL! You made my morning. Now I can drag myself to the office and face the day 

Brilliant! Do you have a blog?


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

Thats me that is.

I am the precious cameraman who complains that the light is all wrong.

And yes, in mixed environments I am secretly thinking what lee numbers I'd use to colour correct.

Even socially. In the bar. Waiting at the supermarket till. Driving through a tunnel. 

It's tragically tragically sad.

I don't take my photography quite so seriously as my video, but hey, the OP asked about WB.

Maybe I should have just towed the 'it's subjective' line.


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## VirtualRain (Jan 18, 2013)

RickSpringfield said:


> Dear Original Poster,
> 
> If this is your first experience with White Balance ... stop looking at this post and immediately run into the other room where your significant other is sitting and give them a big hug. Then swiftly seize your camera and using whatever settings are full auto (green box) take a bunch of pictures. Burst, Timed, Horizontal, Vertical, anything. Then download them onto your computer and look at them together and talk about the great expressions, and the fun you had taking the pictures, and then go get an ice cream. When your done, come back home and snuggle and then right before bed, when you are sitting up reading a book... reach over, grab your camera, and snap another few pictures under the soft white light of the lamp on the nightstand. Maybe even splurge with a couple of hilarious self portraits together. Then go to bed and dream about how you'll look at these great pictures tomorrow.
> This is immensely important. If you don't do this, you'll be missing out on your last chance to take a picture and ... deep breath everyone ... not be critical of it. The fact is, white balance is an enormous rat hole. Once you start down this path you won't ever go back to that happy place where a sorta exposed, lamp lit, color suppresed, low contrast image will do. Oh no my friend, from now on its not about taking pictures ... its about taking pictures with grey cards and modifiers and obsessing about Kelvins. In fact, you wont even be able to walk into someones house without thinking 'You really should have used color balanced 5500k bulbs in those lamps with white shades'. And for awhile folks will think ... maybe he's got something there. But then after hanging out with you and your custom white balanced buddy's for a night, the rest of your friends will start to think ... 'Man, if I'm not wearing a shirt with a red ring on it or holding a grey card this guy doesn't even notice me'. And they couldn't be farther from the truth because you and I both know you for sure noticed them. In fact, you noticed they were lit with a 2700k soft white bulb from home depot and its not doing much for their skin tones.
> ...



LOL... Book worthy! ;D


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## Quasimodo (Jan 18, 2013)

RickSpringfield said:


> Dear Original Poster,
> 
> If this is your first experience with White Balance ... stop looking at this post and immediately run into the other room where your significant other is sitting and give them a big hug. Then swiftly seize your camera and using whatever settings are full auto (green box) take a bunch of pictures. Burst, Timed, Horizontal, Vertical, anything. Then download them onto your computer and look at them together and talk about the great expressions, and the fun you had taking the pictures, and then go get an ice cream. When your done, come back home and snuggle and then right before bed, when you are sitting up reading a book... reach over, grab your camera, and snap another few pictures under the soft white light of the lamp on the nightstand. Maybe even splurge with a couple of hilarious self portraits together. Then go to bed and dream about how you'll look at these great pictures tomorrow.
> This is immensely important. If you don't do this, you'll be missing out on your last chance to take a picture and ... deep breath everyone ... not be critical of it. The fact is, white balance is an enormous rat hole. Once you start down this path you won't ever go back to that happy place where a sorta exposed, lamp lit, color suppresed, low contrast image will do. Oh no my friend, from now on its not about taking pictures ... its about taking pictures with grey cards and modifiers and obsessing about Kelvins. In fact, you wont even be able to walk into someones house without thinking 'You really should have used color balanced 5500k bulbs in those lamps with white shades'. And for awhile folks will think ... maybe he's got something there. But then after hanging out with you and your custom white balanced buddy's for a night, the rest of your friends will start to think ... 'Man, if I'm not wearing a shirt with a red ring on it or holding a grey card this guy doesn't even notice me'. And they couldn't be farther from the truth because you and I both know you for sure noticed them. In fact, you noticed they were lit with a 2700k soft white bulb from home depot and its not doing much for their skin tones.
> ...



LOL! Well written and funny 

However, and I make no claim to be good at this. There are people here who have serious game in this (I have used a recycled napkin in a pinch). I got the great advice in here to buy the ColorChecker Passport by X rite, and I have to say that it is brilliant. I normally shoot with AWB (always only in RAW) for private use. However, right now I am shooting quite a few people (portraits) for a commercial campaign, and I have found that using the Colorchecker which works so well and integrated with Lightroom is saving the day and night of not having to salvage the pictures in post. All ad agencies have all adobe products, and so I shoot my pictures with the colorchecker, and I leave it to the artdirectors and designers to get it right


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## bdunbar79 (Jan 18, 2013)

I love the way you guys make the OP's decisions for him. Paul actually got it right. The OP specifically asked about WB and how to use it properly, and now you are making a decision for him that it doesn't matter to him and it's not important because it's subjective. Oh how I wish I knew as much as most of you. 

Or, you could just answer the question. Perhaps you don't know and use the "it's subjective" line to cover your own lack of knowledge. 

Either way, keep it up! This is good entertainment!


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

hjulenissen said:


> Color is _defined_ by its subjective effect on humans. All of the efforts spent by engineers and color scientists (in this context) are to mimic those subjective effects using technology. By necessity, those efforts are based on models describing "typical" viewer response for color patches covering a certain percentage of our field of view.





> I think it is critical to understand that it is hard to define a "technically correct" white balance. The closest would perhaps be to eliminate the bias introduced by the illuminant in the scene, and replace it by the illuminant used while viewing the finished image. What would that do to candle-lit scenes?



Bullocks!
Kelvin Scale was derived by a physicist from my home city, Glasgow.
The colour temperature comes from the colour of carbon when burned at a given temperature.
It's really that simple.

When you dial in a kelvin, thats what it's based on. 

Your example of the candlelight is a good one. Do you use awb and try and fix it later? Do you dial in the closest preset? Now which preset is closest again? What if you wanted to lift it a little with some bounced soft flash? Say if the family were a black family for example? How do you make sure the flash output doesnt clash with the candlelight?

Heres a couple for you... A model lit by flash in an urban environment at night with some sodium streetlamps in the background?

A singer in a band under hmi stage lights? LED pars? Fresnel spot? With red green and blue gels on some of them?




> I think it tells them a lot. Rather than buying all kinds of gadgets, obstructing their work-flow etc, it tells them that "as long as it looks good on display/print to you, everything is ok". It also tells you that "no matter how good AWB is in the future, it will likely never be perceived as perfect, so you might as well be prepared to do some manual effort if you have high demands".



You need one gadget. A white sheet of paper. If you know your kelvins, or even the appropriate preset you don't even need that.

The first two quotes from your reply indicate that you have no consideration of what the OP asked, and confirm that you really don't know what you are talking about. 

It might be complex, it might need a bit of thought, it might require an alteration to how you work, but then that was the gist of the OP question. They are willing to try and learn, they've correctly sussed that its probably quite important in some situations and that an awareness of it can't hurt.

Hey, man, if awb is working for you, great, but niether the OP or anybody else asked!

PS: when you 'fix' your WB in post, as with all sliders, less is more.


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## mirekti (Jan 18, 2013)

Is white balance related to metering?
For example I know that my 5dIII measures the exposure at the center of the frame. 
Let's say I decide to measure outside of center. I than measure with center point, lock metering, recompose and refocus. 
What will the AWB be? The one from the first measure or it will be recalculated after I recomposed?


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

In camera metering is generally about the luminance (brightness) of light, more usually that reflected from the subject, white balance is more about the colour of the source light.

Both systems cans be easily confused, metering by light or dark subjects, by lights behind the subject etc, white balance can be confused by the colour of the subject.

Despite the 'it's subjective' crew this is why I think its impoetant to understand how the camera is working, and where it can get things wrong, as this helps you get things right.


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## TrumpetPower! (Jan 18, 2013)

There's no way to actually understand white balance without also understanding linear raw, which also gets into exposure and profiling and dynamic range (of both the scene and the camera) and lots more.

In uniform illumination, it's possible to get truly perfect exposure and white balance (and near-perfect color reproduction and contrast and all the rest) by knowing what to do with a quality profiling chart and all sorts of arcane software. In less tightly controlled situations, you can use similar techniques with a ColorChecker to get as close as the actual lighting in the scene permits.

If you're truly insane, Elle Stone outlines a procedure here:

http://www.freelists.org/post/argyllcms/Profile-input-white-not-mapping-to-output-white,68

that does that. I have a follow-up post in that thread with refinements and simplifications...but, alas, only the images and not my actual text made it to the archives. But Elle's process works, is logically equivalent to what I do, and the inspiration for what I do.

If, for whatever reason, shooting a color chart isn't an option, I have two suggestions, both of which work better than anything else I've seen discussed in this thread. (Both assume you're shooting RAW and setting white balance in post-processing.)

First, forget all the expensive white balance targets. None of them is as good as a styrofoam coffee cup.

Styrofoam is the right level of reflectance to get a noise-free sample without clipping, and it's spectrally flat. Indeed, with only two notable exceptions, nothing is better than styrofoam as a white balance target.

The first exception is Tyvek, which is 98% - 99% reflective and even more spectrally flat than styrofoam (which is 80% reflective or so). Your local office supply store sells Tyvek envelopes. Tyvek tends to be on the glossy side and prone to glare...which is good for knowing if you've got glare in the scene, but not so good for setting white balance. The other exception is Spectralon, which is ludicrously-refined PTFE (Teflon) with a glare-free surface. Expect to pay as much for a Spectralon target as for an L lens.

But back to the coffee cup. You can put it in your scene and get an even sampling of the illumination from every direction; you can then eyedropper from any part of the cup to get a white balance from light in that direction. Or, you can put it over your lens and get an average of all the color in the space where you're shooting, perfect for an in-camera custom white balance.

There are, of course, times when it isn't even practical to put a coffee cup in the scene. In such cases, it's still easy to get an excellent white balance. All you have to do is crank the saturation to maximum, fiddle with the white balance knobs until the colors in the scene look the least weird you can make them, and then return the saturation back to wherever you want it.

So, there're my two recommendations for white balance for the not-insane.

I'd also especially recommend avoiding using anything other than styrofoam (or Tyvek or Spectralon) for white balance, and especially avoiding "white" paper. With the exception of a small number of expensive fine art papers, paper is actually light yellow and has fluorescent blue dyes added to trick the eyes into thinking that the paper is whiter than white. It's a similar story with white clothing, with the added bonus that you usually get a non-trivial amount of skin showing through the fabric. Very few walls painted white are actually free of colorants, even though the base paints are generally themselves pretty good potential targets. Even those walls painted with truly white paint...well, it doesn't take long for them to take on colors from the environment.

I could go on, but this is already more information than is healthy....

Cheers,

b&


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## mirekti (Jan 18, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> In camera metering is generally about the luminance (brightness) of light, more usually that reflected from the subject, white balance is more about the colour of the source light.
> 
> Both systems cans be easily confused, metering by light or dark subjects, by lights behind the subject etc, white balance can be confused by the colour of the subject.
> 
> Despite the 'it's subjective' crew this is why I think its impoetant to understand how the camera is working, and where it can get things wrong, as this helps you get things right.



I'm sorry, but I believe you didn't understand my question. My point is to understand the way camera works and that's why I asked the question:
Is white balance metering related to light metering or not? 
So let's say that before I recompose my image, the frame is filled with some light color (e.g. 2600K) that doesn't appear in the frame once I do the recomposition (e.g. 3000K), but I locked the metering at the first frame. Will AWB change to 3000K or it will remain at 2600K even though the metering is locked?


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

mirekti said:


> paul13walnut5 said:
> 
> 
> > I'm sorry, but I believe you didn't understand my question. My point is to understand the way camera works and that's why I asked the question:
> ...


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

@hjulenissen

I'm never going to win this one, and life's just too short.

If you are happy with your results then I'm happy for you.

You got your way, I've got mine.

I think it's important to understand at least a little about whats happening, and that was I believe the spirit of the OP's question.

Anyway, cheers.


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## paul13walnut5 (Jan 18, 2013)

@TrumpetPower

Good stuff, in defense of the humble bit of 'white' paper, its something that fits in the kit bag quite easily, and is less imperfect than awb etc. paper will at least get you close enough that fixes in post are minor.

I'll try the styrofoam cup sometime.

I have the qpcards & a calumet grey white black card in my kit bag, but accept that even this is s bit cumbersome for many, especially given canons old fashion manusl wbbprocedure.
With live view it should take one button.

I look forward to working my way through your link, everyday is a school day and all that.

Cheers


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