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Archive 2014 · Choose a white balance

  
 
ben egbert
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Choose a white balance


I had my camera set to sunshine when I took this pre sunrise shot. See SOOC 5250 12

Using the white balance tool, I get 14250-50, a bit too warm I think.

Backing it off to taste I arrived at 12000-40.

How would you do this? Would you use other means beside WB?






sun, 5250 12 (SOOC)







14250-50 (white water selected)







backed off to 12000 40




Jun 30, 2014 at 01:53 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Choose a white balance


Shoot AWB and raw and use ACR to set color temp when you import the raw.


Jun 30, 2014 at 03:25 PM
tsilva
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Choose a white balance


A question you need to ask yourself as the "artist". Do you want to "correct" the light, or do you want to maintain the "mood" of the light as it was when you shot the photo? If you are going to correct the light, then why shoot it during blue or golden hours??


Jun 30, 2014 at 05:08 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Choose a white balance


AuntiPode wrote:
Shoot AWB and raw and use ACR to set color temp when you import the raw.


I have shot AWB for 10 years and then I watched a tutorial at B&H which said always shot daylight or shade. I will be changing it back for sure, but I thought this was a good subject and we certainly need some posts here.



Jun 30, 2014 at 05:21 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Choose a white balance


tsilva wrote:
A question you need to ask yourself as the "artist". Do you want to "correct" the light, or do you want to maintain the "mood" of the light as it was when you shot the photo? If you are going to correct the light, then why shoot it during blue or golden hours??


Nah, I want to preserve the light, but that shot did not preserve the light. It would have been a lot closer in AWB.This is why after finding WB, I pulled it back a bit.

I expect Kent has a way to do the color calculus. If so, this was taken in a canyon that was under a blue sky with the peaks in sun, but no light was getting into the canyon except overhead (blue) and maybe reflected light from canyon walls. There is some sky showing between trees, it should be blue.



Jun 30, 2014 at 05:23 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Choose a white balance


Wasn't making a recommendation, just listing it as a possibility. It's what I do simply because I adjust it that way to please my eye. For landscapes, the BH method might be better, for some value of "better". I don't have a system, just tweak everything to "look right" ... by intuition.


Jun 30, 2014 at 05:40 PM
Eyeball
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Choose a white balance


There's nothing sacrosanct o perfectly right about AWB. It's just the camera's guess at white balance. If it makes you feel better though, you could try "Auto" in Lightroom or ACR to have something to compare against.

I agree at least partly with tsilva in terms of what mood you want to convey.

Personally, I like the middle shot that you balanced on the water. With a more centered white balance, I think it brings out more color differentiation and it makes the shot a little more interesting to me.

The cooler shot is OK but when the white balance is biased to one side or the other the image starts to take on an almost monochromatic look to me. If the subject had stronger graphical elements I think it might work better with cool WB but as is it just looks a little blah to me.



Jun 30, 2014 at 07:12 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Choose a white balance


AuntiPode wrote:
Wasn't making a recommendation, just listing it as a possibility. It's what I do simply because I adjust it that way to please my eye. For landscapes, the BH method might be better, for some value of "better". I don't have a system, just tweak everything to "look right" ... by intuition.


And I was not arguing, you are right in my opinion, AWB is a better way to start when you are not even close to sunlight. You can change it during conversion, but if you are way off as in this case, it makes it really hard to guess where to go.

I need to set my default back to AWB and use sunlight only when its sunlight or golden hour. The argument at the B&H webinar was not to defeat the golden hour. But this was not golden hour, more like blue hour. But not this blue.



Jun 30, 2014 at 07:55 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Choose a white balance


Eyeball wrote:
There's nothing sacrosanct o perfectly right about AWB. It's just the camera's guess at white balance. If it makes you feel better though, you could try "Auto" in Lightroom or ACR to have something to compare against.

I agree at least partly with tsilva in terms of what mood you want to convey.

Personally, I like the middle shot that you balanced on the water. With a more centered white balance, I think it brings out more color differentiation and it makes the shot a little more interesting to me.

The cooler shot is OK but when the white balance is biased to
...Show more

Auto returns 7500- 30, still pretty blue. By middle shot, do you mean the 14250-50 or the 12000-40? I am now thinking I should probably go about half way between the 14250 and the 5250. This would preserve the cooler tone expected of the ambient light while fixing the overly blue look.

These are straight out of camera other than WB so no sat contrast or sharpening has been added. It cleans up nice once a WB had been selected and I crop out some of the foreground. I will show a finished version, but want to figure out WB first.






auto WB 7500-30




Jun 30, 2014 at 08:03 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Choose a white balance


tsilva wrote:
A question you need to ask yourself as the "artist". Do you want to "correct" the light, or do you want to maintain the "mood" of the light as it was when you shot the photo?


+1 @ WB vs. Mood.

However, the quality/orientation/direction of the light in golden hour (raking sidelight) is different from the quality/orientation/direction of the noon light. Depending on your orientation @ NESW, you may want your light for modeling purposes ... even if you don't want to showcase the mood of the light at a given time of day (warm or cool).


My question is what's the difference between making a WB setting in camera vs. post-camera? Isn't the process still going to incorporate an algorithm adjustment by a parameter you define (or AWB assumes/calculates). Personally, I believe you have more control in post than you do in-camera. I tend to shoot daylight balance (as I would have in the chrome days) to allow natural ambient to reveal its colors, then decide in post if I want to neutralize them or showcase them for mood, etc.


+1 @ Dennis ... I'm spot on in agreement on all his points ... especially that a good neutral can anchor the colors, and the cast makes the image go blah.




Jun 30, 2014 at 08:24 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Choose a white balance


These four images came from two of Ben's first three in the OP. Two are from the sooc, the other two are from the third image in the OP ... with no edits of any kind made to any of them.




A






B






C








Edited on Jun 30, 2014 at 09:17 PM · View previous versions



Jun 30, 2014 at 08:39 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Choose a white balance


Or perhaps make it look like more sunlight is peaking through, using a curves layer set from a white point picked in the froth and small additions of yellow in the highlights and mid-tones with color balance layer tweaks and some dodging.







Jun 30, 2014 at 08:54 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Choose a white balance


And a stab at some color (with edits).

Converse to the direct raking light of golden hour, this is "softbox" blue lighting. The soft indirect light may be a desirable quality of light, even if the blue is not the desired hue.







Jun 30, 2014 at 09:11 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Choose a white balance


RustyBug wrote:
+1 @ WB vs. Mood.

However, the quality/orientation/direction of the light in golden hour (raking sidelight) is different from the quality/orientation/direction of the noon light. Depending on your orientation @ NESW, you may want your light for modeling purposes ... even if you don't want to showcase the mood of the light at a given time of day (warm or cool).

My question is what's the difference between making a WB setting in camera vs. post-camera? Isn't the process still going to incorporate an algorithm adjustment by a parameter you define (or AWB assumes/calculates). Personally, I believe you have more control in
...Show more

Neutral ambient, what does that mean? How do you find it? If I use AWB in camera is that the same as Auto wb in ACR? I see that the presets in ACR are not identical to what the camera sets, but perhaps close enough.

You say no edits in the 4 images, I assume you changed only WB? I see my cooler images process darker than my warmer conversions, is that what you are demonstrating with the B&W?

Edited on Jun 30, 2014 at 09:29 PM · View previous versions



Jun 30, 2014 at 09:19 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Choose a white balance


AuntiPode wrote:
Or perhaps make it look like more sunlight is peaking through, using a curves layer set from a white point picked in the froth and small additions of yellow in the highlights and mid-tones with color balance layer tweaks and some dodging.


I sort of get this with the warmer WB settings, but I am not sure now what mood I desire for this.

This image is part of a four seasons set with this representing summer. Spring will be bright green, summer a bit darker and fall of course very warm. I don't have a winter yet but of course it will be snow and ice.



Jun 30, 2014 at 09:23 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Choose a white balance


RustyBug wrote:
And a stab at some color (with edits).

Converse to the direct raking light of golden hour, this is "softbox" blue lighting. The soft indirect light may be a desirable quality of light, even if the blue is not the desired hue.


I like this and it is sort of like one I did at auto WB. I do plan a 16x9 crop for this, but left the sky portion in to help establish color clues.

What I do want is to get a true white in the white water. The rest can be cooler. I am leaning more cool at the moment.





My version of the finished auto WB




Jun 30, 2014 at 09:26 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Choose a white balance


ben egbert wrote:
You say no edits in the 4 images, I assume you changed only WB?


I changed nothing.

You had made a change in WB from the sooc to the edited version. These are Red, Green or Blue Channels from those respective two images.





Jun 30, 2014 at 09:53 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Choose a white balance


RustyBug wrote:
I changed nothing.

You had made a change in WB from the sooc to the edited version. These are Red, Green or Blue Channels from those respective two images.



Ok, so in a sense they are edited, to strip the two channels not shown. Good way to analyze an image.

By the way, the main difference I see between your rework and my last is that yours is darker, I like that better. But I don't see much difference in WB or tone.

On occasion, I use red or green channels applied back in overlay mode. Seldom blue, And I don't do this often.



Jul 01, 2014 at 09:05 AM
newhaven
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Choose a white balance


Another white balance method:

Open image in photoshop.
Duplicate background layer, then Filter> Blur> Average.
Create curves adjustment layer.
Select the middle gray dropper and click on blurred image.
Set blurred image layer visibility off.
If more color correction is needed, duplicate curves adjustment layer.
Put both curve layers in a group and adjusted the opacity.
I also used a selective color adjustment layer to remove blue cast from white water.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/glenngaryglenross/awb_web1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/glenngaryglenross/AWB_layers_web1.jpg



Jul 01, 2014 at 10:49 AM
ben egbert
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Choose a white balance


Neat trick, I am going to make an action to do this. I just tried it and liked the result.


Jul 01, 2014 at 11:03 AM
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