Quick question for the group on what result you would expect to see using the following lighting scenario and WB setting method (custom).
Say you took a photo of a proper gray card under weird lighting such as golden hour on the field, or unicolor stage lighting. In that specific lighting, you then on the Canon Camera set the White Balance (WB) to use that customer setting of the gray card shot you just took.
Now, say under that same lighting (call it pink), if you took a jpeg photo of a pure white sheet of paper and displayed it on your calibrated computer screen, would the sheet of paper look white, or would it look like it did in reality pink due to the lighting (I hope the answer is Pink).
(please don't give me the shoot in RAW and adjust later answer, this question is in relationship to replicating the actual imiage color that you observed when shooting).
I ask because I want some best method to have the screen display the observation. It is my understanding that if I later us a tool like LightRoom WB picker on the white sheet, it would actually remove the color cast and change the photo from the reality of the casted lighting.
If I understand the question, if you set the custom white balance under pink lighting, and then took a JPG photo of a pure white sheet of paper under the same lighting, the paper would look white when you display the photo on screen
- you have set the custom WB so that it cancels out the pink colour cast
- that's the whole point of a custom WB, it removes the colour cast.
If you want the screen to reflect the observation (ie paper appears pink), you should set a neutral WB before taking the photo (such as daylight)
Scott-
your suggestion is understandable but won't produce accurate results as it still make assumptions in the Daylight setting itself.
I am trying to understand a way to be able to get accurate reproductions since shooting the gray card would cancel it.
Scott's answer's correct...Your original question is convoluted and confusing. It may be easier to answer you question if you could explain where "daylight" setting entered the equation? If you set a custom white balance to a gray card, your white should look white.
If you want white to be pink you need to increase the kelvins, if you want it to be blue, you need to decrease them. If you put your camera on daylight, it's going to set your white balance to 5200k...and it's only going to be an accurate representation when you shoot in perfect daylight conditions.
John,
So how do you recommend setting the camera to accurately capture (from a display perspective) the white paper under Pink light for the proper shade of pink? Say I drop you in the middle of nowhere and all they have is a funky shade of pink and you are going to shoot the white paper essentially looking like that funky shade of pink. How do you set the WB in camera to accurately portray that shade of pink? Any of the WB fixed settings may or may not have the proper assumptions to reproduce the proper shade.
gschlact wrote:
John,
So how do you recommend setting the camera to accurately capture (from a display perspective) the white paper under Pink light for the proper shade of pink? Say I drop you in the middle of nowhere and all they have is a funky shade of pink and you are going to shoot the white paper essentially looking like that funky shade of pink. How do you set the WB in camera to accurately portray that shade of pink? Any of the WB fixed settings may or may not have the proper assumptions to reproduce the proper shade.
We all shoot calibration targets to normalise any given condition to a standard. i.e. to correct for colour casts. I can't think of any way of ensuring that a natural colour cast is correctly displayed though. At least nothing simple.
(In all cases shoot Raw, unless there is a compelling reason to shoot JPEG (Sports Illustrated half-time deadline in ten minutes). Setting a camera white balance helps the HistoBlinkyMeter.)
Colour balance is a judgement call. It requires judgement to decide whether a neutral balance is desirable or whether a perceived balance is desirable.
That is why the ColorChecker cards have a series of slightly different "whites" so you can balance to make warmer tones.
Use a gray card to get to neutral and that will give you the best gamut of colours for the conversion. From there use judgement to deviate from neutral.
Strongly coloured stage lighting is a special case. Don't try to white balance it or to shift with shifting light patterns.
If you want the image to look more or less the way it does to the eye then use a daylight 5000-5500 white balance. If you want the image to be technically neutral then photograph a whibal or color checker chart and use that to set the white balance for raw conversion.
If the question is, "Can a DSLR employing either a sRGB, adobe RGB or Proprietary RAW format send a signal to a computer system monitor employing its own color space and LUTs and reproduce an identical output to what a particular human eye is "seeing"?", the answer would be, "no". At best, one can recreate an approximate representation of the, um, "reality" before them.
The human spectral response varies both, from individual to individual, and in varying light conditions (rods and cones, and all that). I am unaware of any sensor that can precisely mimic that behavior identically (both in color response and DR), as I am equally unaware of any software/monitor system that can display the entire human spectral response.
Setting a camera's WB to its neutral response point to where, say, 255R, 255G, 255B equals what it "says" is white, it will then record warm tungsten lighting warmly, cool fluorescent lighting cooly. The pink dress will be affected by those light sources and recorded (approximately) as the camera "sees" it...a warmer pink under tungsten, a cooler pink under fluorescents...and you will "see" an approximation of the camera's interetation on your screen.
14-bit DSLRs and 12-bit monitors with LUTs are but interpretive mediums, as are human eyes. You and I see different colored pink dresses.
I'm not sure if any of this is helpful, perhaps you could elaborate more?
If you want to be more precise than using Daylight preset or 5200K, shoot an accurate neutral card under midday sunlight and use that for your custom white balance. This should yield color casts that are an accurate representation of whatever the actual source lighting is. Of course, our visual system is highly adaptable, and your perception of the subjects under golden hour light may still be somewhat different from what the camera records. From experience, though, I'd say that a Daylight balance yields a pretty good result when you want to show "what you saw". It's just sometimes stronger in effect than what I perceived, so I sometimes back off (after the fact, in raw conversion) slightly toward the actual white balance of a high K.
I realize you dismissed RAW in your original post, but that really is the key to your problem. As Jimmy462 has so succinctly pointed out there is no "objective" pink in the real world. The only "objective" colors are those defined by the printing/paint manufacturing industries. They don't actually map to the "real" world.
You'll get as many answers here as there are photogs that have worked with this "problem," but for me (with a few notable exceptions: florescence for one) I shoot AWB in RAW and get back to "reality" in post. I never shoot JPEG so can't offer insight to that process other than to note that any in camera JPEG is the product of a group of white coated engineering geeks in a lab somewhere deciding for you what pink is.
Doubt this was particularly helpful as it seems you are looking for an absolute or "true" color. Artists from the dawn of time have struggled with this problem.
Photon wrote:
...and your perception of the subjects under golden hour light may still be somewhat different from what the camera records.
For sure - i still remember shooting a sunset a few years ago the camera recorded colours that didn't really reproduce the sunset at all. The sunset was nice for sure, but what the camera recorded was amazing. Just looking at the LCD whilst shooting i could see how different the recorded image was. I went with the camera "interpretation"...
Banks all for taking the time to respond. Many of you understand the quandary and see jpg, raw, adobe , srgb etc have nothing to do with the question. It is about portraying and carrying through consistent perception for actual to camera to display. (Assumes within specs of each)
I believe Photons answers best provides the necessary method to the best possible but not guaranteed method. The exception. Is if say warm tungsten sits behind the pink filer etc
But in thinking more about it, to really get to what I am saying, we need a reverse-WB tool color picker. You choose the neutral color of object you shot that you know was neutral and you turn everything else to match its rgb ratio.
Thanks again.
This is a question I have been struggling with myself. I usually shoot at dawn and dusk and aim to capture colors as I see it. I can't get that by using custom WB as the 'wanted' color cast would be removed. I have tried daylight WB and Auto WB. On the latest Canon bodies, AWB has worked best but tweaks are always needed in post.
Fred
I start with daylight WB if it's clear. Low angle sunlight will look reddish, which matches my eyes' perception. (In astronomy the term "airmass" describes the relative amount of atmosphere your light travels through, which affects how the light is reddened among other things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_mass_%28astronomy%29)
The frustrating task for me is shooting in partly cloudy conditions at sunrise or sunset, when the sky turns spectacular colors.
Sometimes using cloudy seems to make evening light look more natural.
But I wish there was some a more ideal way. I think a color correct monitor in the field and quickly comparing is the only way. Streaming liveview feed and adjust WB would be good but I don't think any tablets color correct streamed video in. I will try to hack something up for eyefi and ipad. I don't think it will be possilbe to do it by liveview though since Apple is so 1984 about everything.
(I hope the answer is Pink).