Professional portrait/headshot, WB problems.

Recreate the set up and photograph your wife holding your gray balance target and then apply the WB settings to the real shoot.

Did you get a good shot, or not?

As for the future, if you want to use a special card, go right ahead.

It could be a good way to spend a weekend. Try both kinds of cards, and a subject with different color clothes from shot to shot, but the same makeup.

Regarding your question about card types.

We might argue that a grey card is for exposure, and multicolored cards are for color balance.

Except each will do a pretty good job doing the work of the other.

AVOID CONFUSION: remember that most cards have settings where some colors are emphasized and other muted. This can drive you nuts when trying to make exact matches. "Portrait" for example reduces reds in many cameras. Landscape boosts green and blue.

BAK

hoakin1981 said:

I have shot my wife's professional portrait using 2 diffused flashguns but I am having problems matching her skin tone in post. As shot (in RAW of course) she looks too blue and even though I can correct the problem in LR easily enough (she was wearing a white shirt) I am not sure I am nailing the color tone.

What I would like to know is whether I should have used my 3 in 1 White Balance card set from DGK Color Tools or not. I have tried to read up on the subject but I found so many contradicting pieces of info. that I don't know what to believe anymore.

Basically my questions are:

1. Should I have used the card or not?

2. Is there a difference between a grey card and a WB card?

3. My set has 3 cards White-Black-Grey on which one do you use the eye-dropper tool in LR on and why?

4. Since I did not use the card on that shoot, can I shoot it afterwards? I can have the same set-up but I do not remember the exact settings on my flashes (both on manual).

Thanks in advance for all the info!

Click to expand...

I can't speak for the DGK cards, but a good color balance target is quite useful. Shoot once, then apply the settings to all images in the series. Repeat this process for each change in lighting.

A "gray" card is designed to be middle tone and to use for exposure. Some are color neutral, some claim color neutrality and aren't, and some simply are not and don't claim to be (though they may be close). The usefulness for color balance will depend on which category they fall into.

White balance targets can be any range of gray to white, so some can act as a gray card, and some are more neutral than others.

If given a set of patches, I would select the gray, as the whites can blow out.

If shot in the same place, with the same lights (set similarly if not exactly) then re-shooting can be useful, if for no other reason than an educational experience.

Why not just set the camera to the proper white balance to start with?

In post now, you can try the photofilter adjustment layer to cancel the blue cast.

This is wrong: ... that most cards have settings

This is right: ... that most cameras have settings

BAK

Was she wearing something gray? If so, you could neutralize to that and get close. If not, I have roughed in color balance on the whites of the eyes or teeth, then tweaked accordingly.

A gray card should always be shot for skin tones - they gray will help neutralize any tints from the lighting.

Better yet, use a Colorchecker, profile the camera to the color patches, then neutralize to the second gray patch from the left to get the most accurate color.

You could reproduce the set (close is good enough) and shoot the set of card to get the temp close. The white and black cards are used with something like PS to set the max white and black level. The gray card is used for midtone and color temp balancing.

However...neutral may not look best for portraits. I'll often neutralize, then push ~600K to color temp to give the portrait a warmer feel.

I use auto white balance setting on my canons, it works well from 3000k to 7000k except with canon speedlights even on manual (rubbish). Use studio lights or other flashguns like Sunpak hammer heads or Vivitar with diffusers on metered manual. I always use a colour correction card on the 1st shot for any lighting setup for fine tuning WB. I load the images into PS, open levels and click the midtone eyedropper on a grey patch, click ok, highlight the next image and use ctrl/alt/L. The WB will transfer to the new image, highlight next image and repeat ctrl/alt/L. Continue until all the images are done. Works for me.

Re last post; I shoot RAW, I know that images can be batch processed in ACR or DPP but I do it the way I described (habit). JPEG's can also be done this way.

Every hot-shoe flash or studio strobe I have tried has a slightly different color temperature. Every diffuser effects the color temperature slightly. Every camera sensor has a different set of color sensitivities. Every lens has a subtle color cast.

I have found that most hot-shoe flash units are around 6300K while daylight or studio strobes are around 5400K. If you use hot-shoe flash units with a Daylight setting it is to be expected that the images would be slightly blue.

I never shoot without testing. This testing can be in the form of a white balance card or better yet with a X-Rite Color Checker.

Using a WB card is good. Using a ColorChecker card (Passport or Classic) is even better because it not only corrects for the WB of the lighting but it also corrects any color sensitivity variations or lens color casts.

A white shirt may or may not be good enough for a WB. If the white shirt is overexposed than it simply won't work. If it is new or has been washed with detergents containing UV whiteness enhancers it won't work. In any case you want to use an area that is not overexposed so use an area that is in shade and is light gray.

Your three-color cards are probably good enough for two uses - exposure setting and WB.

Turn on the camera's Highlight Alert and set the camera to the desired subject exposure. Have the subject hold the white card just in front of their nose and aimed at the camera. Start with the power of your lights low enough that you know you are underexposing the image. Slowly increase the power of the lights until the body of the white card (not the edges which can throw strange reflections) starts to blink. That is usually a very good RAW exposure.

Now the gray card should be good for WB at this exposure. You can also decrease the exposure by 2 stops and take another shot. In this underexposed shot the white card become gray and should be perfect for setting the WB. The two cards should agree within 50 K or you should throw them out.

Forget about the black card - it is basically worthless. If you set your exposure with the white card then set the blacks in post and you will have gained about 1 to 2 stops of dynamic range over a JPG.

Can you go back?

Yes.

Go back and set up your lights again and take a shot of the WB card. That will give you a good starting place for WB, but remember you are an artist and you may well want to change the WB to give your skin tones a warmer look.

--
Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.

hoakin1981 said:

4. Since I did not use the card on that shoot, can I shoot it afterwards? I can have the same set-up but I do not remember the exact settings on my flashes (both on manual).

Click to expand...

Yep using your greycard would have helped, since you haven't.. there is an easy profi -trick to fix the problem.

The human eye white is almost 100% white... go to lightroom, select the WB eyedropper tool, set magnification to 200% and hit the white part of her eyeball with it. - there it is... an nice neutral colored headshot.

cheers!

Jurjen

A lot of writing with stuff you dont need in theses posts. Keep it simple, shoot manual, meter the exposure, take a shot with you colour card in, JPEG or RAW, Use levels in PS to get correct white balance. Any optical slaves will work fine.

itsDing said:

A lot of writing with stuff you dont need in theses posts. Keep it simple, shoot manual, meter the exposure, take a shot with you colour card in, JPEG or RAW, Use levels in PS to get correct white balance. Any optical slaves will work fine.

Click to expand...

Yeah, ok. Except you failed to notice that this was after the shot was already done and without the gray card in shot.

He also said he had the same lighting and settings in situ, therefore he can simply take a shot of the colour card and use that image to correct the WB and transfer the WB to the image of his wife the way I have described. Ok!

I just put my camera in AV mode and pick a aperture I want. I use a Expo disk and point camera at light then I check to see if I have spike in the center of the histogram after I take a shot.If its good then I set a custom WB on my camera if not then I just adjust power on strobe until I get what I want. Then I go back to manual mode and I'm off and running. Usually works pretty well for me. Hope this helps.

Christopher D Mann said:

I just put my camera in AV mode and pick a aperture I want. I use a Expo disk and point camera at light then I check to see if I have spike in the center of the histogram after I take a shot.If its good then I set a custom WB on my camera if not then I just adjust power on strobe until I get what I want. Then I go back to manual mode and I'm off and running. Usually works pretty well for me. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

This is a fine technique. By aiming at the main light you are getting an accurate exposure and using a custom WB is always a good thing.

My only question is why use Av? I would just set the camera's shutter speed to 1/3 to 2/3 stop below the manufacturer's so called sync. speed* and to the desired aperture and adjust the strobe to the right power. That way there is no chance of forgetting to change from Av to M.

*The reason for using a high shutter speed in the studio is to prevent room light or the modeling lights from significantly illuminating the subject. Depending on the strobe or hot-shoe flash many cameras will not sync properly at the manufacturer's given sync speed and you wind up with a black band across one edge of the image. I always suggest using a shutter speed 1/3 to 2/3 stop slower to make sure there is no problem with a black band in the images. You know the ambient light in the studio is not a problem if you take a photo at your desired exposure and shutter speed without the strobes firing and it comes out black.