Adjusting White Balance with Lightroom
/forum/topic/720965/0

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photobyhl
Registered: Aug 09, 2008
Total Posts: 62
Country: United States

So I usually shoot in auto white balance mode, and adjust later in LR. I've always had trouble getting it spot on from shot to shot (different parts of the church- for example, the attendants walking in, where I typically use flash, vs. the altar area shots where I do not). How do you guys adjust in post? Do you just select all of the photos from the same spot in the church and adjust, then all the photos from another part of the church and adjust, etc.?

Another question I jsut thought of- my pictures always look rather flat coming out of the camera. Then never have any "oomph"! Do you guys have your in-camera saturation bumped up, or do you always bump it up in post?

Thanks!



The Grays
Registered: Nov 10, 2008
Total Posts: 463
Country: United States

We use custom white balance for most of our shots with the expo disk ($99). It always gives you amazing, accurate color even in mixed lighting and it takes about 1 second to use. You can also custom white balance and set it into your camera so that your slideshow images for the reception have killer color. Here is a few custom white balance shots right out of the camera with no color adjustments done in Lightroom.



This image is copyrighted by the owner






This image is copyrighted by the owner




I then like to just pull up the vibrance of the skin tones a bit to add some punch (ie the red, orange and yellow channels).

Hope that helps!

-Zach


photobyhl
Registered: Aug 09, 2008
Total Posts: 62
Country: United States

I've looked into getting the expo disc before, but I don't think I'd think about whipping it out after going from one setting to the next.

The colors in your pictures are beautiful and I just can't seem to achieve that punch. My images often look kind of dull. I have been using more of the vibrance setting in LR (I jsut started using lightroom about a month ago) to pump up the color a bit and it helps some.

Anybody else?



The Grays
Registered: Nov 10, 2008
Total Posts: 463
Country: United States

photobyhl wrote:
I've looked into getting the expo disc before, but I don't think I'd think about whipping it out after going from one setting to the next.

Why not? Back in the day, shooters had to use a manual Kelvin gauge to get color right. The expo disk is easy, you never have to guess and it makes your images consistent every time.

The colors in your pictures are beautiful and I just can't seem to achieve that punch. My images often look kind of dull. I have been using more of the vibrance setting in LR (I jsut started using lightroom about a month ago) to pump up the color a bit and it helps some.

Anybody else?



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