Reading mode: Light Dark

Let's talk about custom White balance

Go to last post
I think you have to read this:
http://www.bythom.com/graycards.htm .
Kate Street said:
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ? I did that on my two
CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those pictures on my
server to share them with you guys.
If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.
IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in
all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in
Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is
RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white
channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?
Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in
Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB
picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I fully understand (but have rarely and with varying success) used
a white sheet of paper to set custom wb. I'm willing to accept that
the limited success was my lack of experience, not a failure on the
camera's part.

However, each time there is a white balance oriented thread, I come
across posts that say to shoot an 18% gray card instead. How can
shooting a gray card set your white balance?

--
Kate
Click to expand...
 
Addison said:
Kate Street said:
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ? I did that on my two
CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those pictures on my
server to share them with you guys.
If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.
IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in
all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in
Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is
RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white
channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?
Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in
Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB
picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I fully understand (but have rarely and with varying success) used
a white sheet of paper to set custom wb. I'm willing to accept that
the limited success was my lack of experience, not a failure on the
camera's part.

However, each time there is a white balance oriented thread, I come
across posts that say to shoot an 18% gray card instead. How can
shooting a gray card set your white balance?

Well, that certainly confuses the issue! Sounds reasonable, though.
--
Kate
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Kate
 
Forrest said:
Forrest41926 said:
is what we all know: with Raw you can change the WB at will. I
thought you were going to address multiple light sources as they
bounce off different objects. What you described to me was more
like a definition of how things have color, not the color of light
illuminating these objects of different hues.
Click to expand...
Sorry: are you making a point not to understand?
Click to expand...
Are you assuming I am playing dumb on person or that I am dumb and I can't understand even if tried? I'll disregard this as you have never been one to be mean in the past so I am sure I read that wrong.
If a green leaf is green because it absorbs all of the light that strikes it
Forrest41926 said:
except green, what does that do to the light that does get
reflected? Shooting in a forest, this is what the lighting in the
shadows is made of - light that's been reflected off something
else, and adopted a color cast.
Click to expand...
WB as I know it is the color of the light SOURCE not the color of those things that light is reflected off of.
Forrest41926 said:
Why does your camera have a sunny and an overcast WB setting? In
both cases the light is provided by the sun...
Click to expand...
That's incorrect. The light source of overcast is the sun REFLECTED through clouds and possibly mixed with blue sky reflections. The color of the sunlight has become moot due to these intermediaries.
Forrest41926 said:
In a landscape, if I'm concerned about WB I'll take a reading in
the open sun, another in the shadows, and possibly another if
there's another imprtant lightsource acting on my picture. Then
I'll experiment with all the WB references I shot, and come up
with the best all-around compromise for the entire frame.
Click to expand...
What is a compromise if the Sun is 5200k and the shade is 10000k? Would you set your WB at 7000?
In a
Forrest41926 said:
cityscape - which I shoot at night - I usually click on/toward the
edge of the lightsources and strong reflections for a WB reading.
But in almost all cases it's more complicated than saying "light =
6,500K" and expecting perfection. If you really want the most
accurate WB you can accomplish, you need to understand all of the
light acting on a scene and then either find the best compromise (
what I would recommend ), or develope your image in slices.

That's when you're trying to make sensiometrecally accurate images
that mimic the way humans see. More often we want to make pleasing
photographs, and wind up adding a warm cast ( slightly red,
slightly yellow ) to an accurately balanced, but perhaps dull,
starting point. Velvia was hugely popular, but not for the
strictest color accuracy.
Click to expand...
I do agree with this last paragraph. WB is a funny thing, it's not always pleasing when it's depicted accurately.
 
Shooting a Grey Card eliminates 'the middle man' so to speak because when you fill the lens of a camera with white it will see it as grey and meter it as such anyways.. Did this make any sense?
Kate Street said:
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ? I did that on my two
CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those pictures on my
server to share them with you guys.
If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.
IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in
all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in
Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is
RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white
channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?
Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in
Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB
picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I fully understand (but have rarely and with varying success) used
a white sheet of paper to set custom wb. I'm willing to accept that
the limited success was my lack of experience, not a failure on the
camera's part.

However, each time there is a white balance oriented thread, I come
across posts that say to shoot an 18% gray card instead. How can
shooting a gray card set your white balance?

--
Kate
Click to expand...
 
That gym probably had two different types of lights up in the rafters. Some of the light looks rather white when reflected on the walls (Assuming white walls!), but then there are also very yellow lights hitting the walls in other places.

When you have lights with two different color temperatures there really isn't much you can do.
 
You can custom WB any time you like. You can custom WB by shooting a non-neutral target (try blue, brown, yellow and see what happens). All custom WB is is saying, "hey camera, this thing I'm showing you is supposed to be white. Adjust your color bias so that this color gets rendered as white." That's all. What you do with it is up to you.

So does it "work"? Depends on what you mean. If you WB with a blue card will your lighting look white? Most certainly not - but you may find you like the "wrong" WB effect. Custom WB is just a tool that we use to manipulate the images that the camera captures. It can be used anytime in the normal straightforward manner or in other more creative ways.

Personally when I'm outdoors I always use AutoWB. I feel it does a fine job. If I want to adjust the color tone later, I'll eyeball a custom WB in the RAW processor. The only time I custom WB is when the lighting is so bad that it makes skin tones look sickly.
 
BigMike said:
According to the Rebel book on custom WB, your suppose to hold the
item at a distance that fills the center of the shot. Is this not
important then? It's okay to fill the entire shot?
Click to expand...
Of course. The camera will only pay attention to what appears inside the area described in the manual, but certainly the rest of the frame can be whatever you like.
 
jimmyboc said:
So you don't have to lock focus completely when you take the shot
using MF mode?
Click to expand...
Correct. In MF mode focus is entirely up to you. The AF points will still light up when they detect focus, but that's just as a guide to tell you whether or not you've MF correctly.
jimmyboc said:
And partial focus is even prepared as long as the
camera take the shot?
Click to expand...
I don't understand.
 
The whiter one is actually modified in PS elements using levels.

Dumb question, do you put the coffee filter / pringles lid ON the lens or is there a gap ?

Dumb question II... After putting on the coffee filter / pringle lid.. do you aim at "shooting spot" or at the lights on the ceiling ?
banzai said:
That gym probably had two different types of lights up in the
rafters. Some of the light looks rather white when reflected on the
walls (Assuming white walls!), but then there are also very yellow
lights hitting the walls in other places.

When you have lights with two different color temperatures there
really isn't much you can do.
Click to expand...
 
I have used the custom W/B and have had great results. I just made my own WB Board by taping together 4 sheets of white printer paper to a piece of cardboard. that way I have it handy if i accidently blow out my WB saved image.

Just make sure you use very white paper, some papers tend to have a grey hue to it.
BigMike said:
I thought this would be another good topic for all of us just
getting to know our Rebels a little more intricately. Getting
correct WB can be difficult under certain lighting situations, and
there several different methods mentioned in the book and in this
forum on how to handle these situations. There is Auto-WB,
preset-WB, and custom WB. Custom is where it seems many are getting
good results under difficult lighting. However, which method works
the best for most of you? There are suggestions to use everything
from grey cards, to coffee filters, to cheese cloth. And how far
from the camera should you have the object your going to shoot, to
set the custom WB? If some of you that have experience with custom
WB could explain the correct method for setting custom WB, it could
help a lot of us get a head start using it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Michael Louis said:
Are you assuming I am playing dumb on person or that I am dumb and
I can't understand even if tried? I'll disregard this as you have
never been one to be mean in the past so I am sure I read that
wrong.
Click to expand...
I probably owe you an appology. Something unbelievably mean and violent happened to a good friend of mine, and I've been more than a little on-edge because of it. I'm sorry I "snapped."

Back to discussing WB, my points are:
Michael Louis said:
WB as I know it is the color of the light SOURCE not the color of
those things that light is reflected off of.
Click to expand...
WB is how the camera compensates for the color of the light itself. We usually go to the source because we've already catagorized the main light sources, like sunlight, street lights, a flash, and so on. But the color of the light can change on it's journey from the source to your CMOS sensor.
Michael Louis said:
Michael Louis said:
Why does your camera have a sunny and an overcast WB setting? In
both cases the light is provided by the sun...
Click to expand...
That's incorrect. The light source of overcast is the sun REFLECTED
through clouds and possibly mixed with blue sky reflections. The
color of the sunlight has become moot due to these intermediaries.
Click to expand...
This is what I've been getting at, and why I brought up a green leaf as an example. The overcase WB setting recognizes that light coming from the sun has been scattered and reflected by particles in the atmosphere ( mostly water particles, plus whatever else makes up a cloud ), and that the character of the light has been changed. It's not just an overcast sky that can have this effect, though; it's almost everything that light comes into contact with. Some things have a very pronounced effect, and others ( like a mirror ) have almost none at all.
Michael Louis said:
What is a compromise if the Sun is 5200k and the shade is 10000k?
Would you set your WB at 7000?
Click to expand...
It really depends on the scene. If I'm shooting a waterfall landscape, and 95% of my frame is in shadow, but there's one intense stripe of pure sunlight coming into the photo, I'll use a grey-card reading from the shade, and let that little swath of sunlight ( which is likely overexposed anyway ) have an incorrect WB. If the scene has a 50/50 mix between sunlight and shade, then I'll test both CWB settings, and ultimately go with whatever section of the picture is more important to the message I'm trying to convey. If it's a "lonely" kind of deep-woods landscape I might properly balance the shadows, and have the sunlight look off. If it's a big, epic scape with lots of sunlight, some shadows thrown by clouds, and so on, I'll typically do a sunny WB conversion. The shadows in that type of picture are just filling space, showing patterns and textures ... they aren't as important to the story you're trying to tell.
Michael Louis said:
I do agree with this last paragraph. WB is a funny thing, it's not
always pleasing when it's depicted accurately.
Click to expand...
And this depends no your style of photography and chosen subject matter. If you're documenting the new style of mouse that you're about to mass produce, you probably want an accurate WB. If you consider your photography "art," well, it's an artist's job to deviate from reality. I'm lucky enough to be in that second group; I'm basically limited by what looks natural, but I don't have to produce results that could actually be measured.

I took a custom WB reading from a grey card for this shot, and played with it, but didn't use it. Obviously I measured the shade from a cloud, in the immediate foreground. I don't remember what I ultimately used for this image; probably the snow on the mountains or a cloud in the sky. There are a million types of prarrie grass, and I could get away with having a slight color cast here; the flats will just look like some other type of grass. But everybody's seen big puffy clouds, and everybody knows how they're supposed to look. Above all else, I wanted the sky and the clouds to look natural, and probably used a CWB from the clouds themselves after the fact. Then I used a warming filter on everything but the sky ... doesn't look like I did a great job at the seam, though. I'm sure if you really hit the levels you'd see a cast in the shadows and probably in the midtones in the field, but for me this is a photo of the sky, with the mountain range for a backdrop, and the road is in the corner is more of a "false subject;" an anchor pulling these bigger themes back to reality, and connecting them to the viewer.

Anyway, I'm NOT suggesting that everyone should try to mimick my approach. I'm saying that things are a little more complicated than we might be inclined to give them credit for, and that if your goal isn't to "accurately and precisely reproduce," that psychology is as important as accuracy, and that it often makes sense to consider what you're trying to show in your picture, and then show things as you're viewer expects to see them, with your real goal in mind. I'm probably not making any sense here...

 
There are other goodies (besides getting right exposure) when shooting graycard under certain lightning.

If you shoot RAW its easy to set other pictures to correct WB simply first setting graycard picture (I use PS CS, there is this eyedropper tool to set WB simply by clicking right spot) to right WB, saving its values and using Browser, select other pictures and (in browser winddow) choose: Automate/Apply Camera Raw Settings, select those settings you just saved and apply - same settings (WB, exposure, sharpening etc.) applied to all selected pictures. I use this when I shoot Icehockey (those lights are usually green or weird yellow or something not usual).

I use one exposure setting for whole session, so it works for me even when I set exposure correction too.
--
dry

My english is far from perfect (I'm Finnish), hope I'm getting myself understood...
 
Forrest said:
Forrest41926 said:
Are you assuming I am playing dumb on person or that I am dumb and
I can't understand even if tried? I'll disregard this as you have
never been one to be mean in the past so I am sure I read that
wrong.
Click to expand...
I probably owe you an appology. Something unbelievably mean and
violent happened to a good friend of mine, and I've been more than
a little on-edge because of it. I'm sorry I "snapped."
Click to expand...
That's ok Forrest, I knew it was something weird because you have always been, and continue to be honorable in all discussions. I hope things work for the best concerning your friend.
Forrest41926 said:
Back to discussing WB, my points are:
Forrest41926 said:
WB as I know it is the color of the light SOURCE not the color of
those things that light is reflected off of.
Click to expand...
WB is how the camera compensates for the color of the light itself.
We usually go to the source because we've already catagorized the
main light sources, like sunlight, street lights, a flash, and so
on. But the color of the light can change on it's journey from the
source to your CMOS sensor.
Forrest41926 said:
Forrest41926 said:
Why does your camera have a sunny and an overcast WB setting? In
both cases the light is provided by the sun...
Click to expand...
That's incorrect. The light source of overcast is the sun REFLECTED
through clouds and possibly mixed with blue sky reflections. The
color of the sunlight has become moot due to these intermediaries.
Click to expand...
This is what I've been getting at, and why I brought up a green
leaf as an example. The overcase WB setting recognizes that light
coming from the sun has been scattered and reflected by particles
in the atmosphere ( mostly water particles, plus whatever else
makes up a cloud ), and that the character of the light has been
changed. It's not just an overcast sky that can have this effect,
though; it's almost everything that light comes into contact with.
Some things have a very pronounced effect, and others ( like a
mirror ) have almost none at all.
Forrest41926 said:
What is a compromise if the Sun is 5200k and the shade is 10000k?
Would you set your WB at 7000?
Click to expand...
It really depends on the scene. If I'm shooting a waterfall
landscape, and 95% of my frame is in shadow, but there's one
intense stripe of pure sunlight coming into the photo, I'll use a
grey-card reading from the shade, and let that little swath of
sunlight ( which is likely overexposed anyway ) have an incorrect
WB. If the scene has a 50/50 mix between sunlight and shade, then
I'll test both CWB settings, and ultimately go with whatever
section of the picture is more important to the message I'm trying
to convey. If it's a "lonely" kind of deep-woods landscape I might
properly balance the shadows, and have the sunlight look off. If
it's a big, epic scape with lots of sunlight, some shadows thrown
by clouds, and so on, I'll typically do a sunny WB conversion. The
shadows in that type of picture are just filling space, showing
patterns and textures ... they aren't as important to the story
you're trying to tell.
Forrest41926 said:
I do agree with this last paragraph. WB is a funny thing, it's not
always pleasing when it's depicted accurately.
Click to expand...
And this depends no your style of photography and chosen subject
matter. If you're documenting the new style of mouse that you're
about to mass produce, you probably want an accurate WB. If you
consider your photography "art," well, it's an artist's job to
deviate from reality. I'm lucky enough to be in that second group;
I'm basically limited by what looks natural, but I don't have to
produce results that could actually be measured.

I took a custom WB reading from a grey card for this shot, and
played with it, but didn't use it. Obviously I measured the shade
from a cloud, in the immediate foreground. I don't remember what I
ultimately used for this image; probably the snow on the mountains
or a cloud in the sky. There are a million types of prarrie grass,
and I could get away with having a slight color cast here; the
flats will just look like some other type of grass. But
everybody's seen big puffy clouds, and everybody knows how they're
supposed to look. Above all else, I wanted the sky and the clouds
to look natural, and probably used a CWB from the clouds
themselves after the fact. Then I used a warming filter on
everything but the sky ... doesn't look like I did a great job at
the seam, though. I'm sure if you really hit the levels you'd
see a cast in the shadows and probably in the midtones in the
field, but for me this is a photo of the sky, with the mountain
range for a backdrop, and the road is in the corner is more of a
"false subject;" an anchor pulling these bigger themes back to
reality, and connecting them to the viewer.

Anyway, I'm NOT suggesting that everyone should try to mimick my
approach. I'm saying that things are a little more complicated
than we might be inclined to give them credit for, and that if your
goal isn't to "accurately and precisely reproduce," that psychology
is as important as accuracy, and that it often makes sense to
consider what you're trying to show in your picture, and then show
things as you're viewer expects to see them, with your real goal in
mind. I'm probably not making any sense here...
Click to expand...
You are making sense, and after a reread I realized that it doesn't matter that I find your CWB style and approach a bit different from mine; all that matters is that it works! All of the photos you have posted have very pleasing colors and no sign of a displeasing 'cast'. End of story! It doesn't matter how you arrived at the WB, nor if the WB was real or how you 'wanted' it to be....I enjoyed looking at them! I have learned a bit too!
Forrest41926 said:
Click to expand...
 
xvrbx said:
This is what I use to do:
  • Shoot in RAW
  • Besides my normal photos, I take an additional test photo of a
grey card, business card, pringles lid or your favorite choice of
neutral subject under the same light than the rest of the photos
  • In RAW conversion (I use C1 for raw workflow), I select the test
photo and set the white balance using the neutral subject (with
minor corrections if needed) and then I copy the WB settings to the
rest of the photos taken under the same lighting conditions

Regards,
xvrbx
Click to expand...
Is similar thing possible in Canon File Viewer Utility?

If any one is aware or that, please tell me the procedure or reference to some site.

Thanks for help in advance.
  • Bakul Vyas
 
banzai said:
BigMike said:
According to the Rebel book on custom WB, your suppose to hold the
item at a distance that fills the center of the shot. Is this not
important then? It's okay to fill the entire shot?
Click to expand...
Of course. The camera will only pay attention to what appears
inside the area described in the manual, but certainly the rest of
the frame can be whatever you like.
Click to expand...
 
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ?
Click to expand...
This is absolutely a clever suggestion! We've had a lot of explanataions and instructionals with complete details on how to do the reference shots, but I, speaking for myself, still can't seem to get it right.
Addison said:
I did that on my two CF cards and it works fine. Tomorrow I'll put those > pictures on my server to share them with you guys.
Click to expand...
I'll eagerly await your post!!! Thanks in advance.
Addison said:
If you shoot in RAW mode don't forget to post both files ( .RAW and .CRW) otherwise the camera won't see it.
IMO, a perfect 18% WB picture should content RGB(209,209,209) in
all the 3 channels (you can verify that by using color picker in
Photoshop), why ? - Because pure white (in 8 bit/channel) is
RGB(255,255,255) and pure black is RGB(0,0,0), so an 18% white
channel should be 255 - 255 * 18% = 209, am I wrong ?
Click to expand...
Sounds logically correct.
Addison said:
Another thing, don't try to take a picture in JPG mode modify it in
Photoshop save it and put it back on your CF to be used as WB
picture, it's not going to work, the camera won't see it.

Hope this helps.

Regards
BigMike said:
I thought this would be another good topic for all of us just
getting to know our Rebels a little more intricately. Getting
correct WB can be difficult under certain lighting situations, and
there several different methods mentioned in the book and in this
forum on how to handle these situations. There is Auto-WB,
preset-WB, and custom WB. Custom is where it seems many are getting
good results under difficult lighting. However, which method works
the best for most of you? There are suggestions to use everything
from grey cards, to coffee filters, to cheese cloth. And how far
from the camera should you have the object your going to shoot, to
set the custom WB? If some of you that have experience with custom
WB could explain the correct method for setting custom WB, it could
help a lot of us get a head start using it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
There are no stumbling blocks, just stepping stones!
 
Marilag said:
Addison said:
Could someone just take the referential WB pictures (RAW or JPG)
and put them on pbase.com so other people can download and put them
on their CF cards and use them as custum WB ?
Click to expand...
This is absolutely a clever suggestion! We've had a lot of
explanataions and instructionals with complete details on how to do
the reference shots, but I, speaking for myself, still can't seem
to get it right.
Click to expand...
...lights have wildly different color temperatures, even within the same type of light. A 75W incandescent bulb can have a different reading from, say GE vs Philips. Even worse if one is coated for "soft light" and one is bare. And forget it if they have different types of lamp shades surrounding them.

A halogen that is slightly dimmed will be a different color than a full blast halogen.

The fluorescents hanging above you in your office will likely be different from the fluorescents hanging in my office.

The sodium lights in one gymnasium can be completely different from the sodium (or other type) lights in another gymnasium.

This is one of the main reasons why custom WB exists! If it were possible to accurately catalog all likely light sources, camera manufacturers would have done it. The "incandescent", "fluorescent", etc preset WBs are their best attempt at a "least common denominator" WB setting for those types of lighting. But obviously they're not perfect.

There's no reason to expect that John Doe's custom WB shots of incandescent or fluorescent lighting will be any more representative of your lighting situation than the camera's built-in presets. It's just not something that someone else can hand to you.
 
Please excuse me. I want to mark this thread for later consumption after work. It's a subject I want to explore in detail.
 
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