Lets have a discussion about White Balance (Page 3): When you shoot raw, the actual sensor values are in the image file and white balance calculated by the camera is put in the...

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

junglejim1949 wrote:

I looked up Color-Checker Passport and Grey Card. One reviewer said they were a waste of time if shooting jpeg. What is the reasoning for this statement and is it true?

When you shoot raw, the actual sensor values are in the image file and white balance calculated by the camera is put in the metadata header but not applied to the data. When you shoot jpg, the camera uses the white balance it calculated and applies it in building the jpg file. So, jpg files coming out of the camera are color corrected, raw files are not. You can take jpg files into PP software and adjust color, but you are color adjusting an already color corrected file.

This is one of the best tutorials on white balance out there: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Ysarex wrote:

The correct WB renders a neutral grey (Red, Green, Blue values equal) as neutral. What if any color cast you want applied to your photograph is entirely your aesthetic choice but should not be confused with white balance.

Joe

Joe here is quite correct. And furthermore "White Balance" is not a point or specific thing, but a process or feature of the camera or software. "Color Balance" can be a specific color treatment in Kelvins. You no not have to stay with neutral (white or grey), many photographer chose their standard to be slightly warm. That is one advantage of shooting RAW, you can control the exact colors of each image file.

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

Just please remember your brain continuously does color correction. Take two pictures of an 18% gray card, one under slightly warm light and the other under slightly cool light. If you look at either image individually, your brain will color correct it and it will look like an 18% gray card to you. If you compare either image to the actual gray card under D5000 lighting, both images will show the color casts.

elliott937 Loc: St. Louis

Don't forget, if there is an Affinity user here, and knows the "tool" to use when clicking on a gray card, please share.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

elliott937 wrote:

Don't forget, if there is an Affinity user here, and knows the "tool" to use when clicking on a gray card, please share.

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-605142-2.html#10401664

Joe

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

There is a problem in trusting in memory to verify the white balance of an image. First, your eyes automatically adjust the color balance. This is why you see something in the shade the same colors as in the sun, your eyes may see a color tint, but your brain fixes that. Second, there are individual perceptions of colors. There are lots of examples on UUH that the poster says a flower or something else is one color, but it does not appear that color to me. Sometimes this is because someone was taught another name for that color, but there must be some where there is a genuinely different perception.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

When I take a photo and post it only one person really knows what the subject looked like, me. Everyone who looks at that picture will then, based on personal experience, decide what it should look like. When we shoot in RAW, White Balance is just one of the adjustment we make in PP to make the picture look like what we think we saw. Unlike focus which, so far, can't be fixed in PP WB can and is. I agree the better accuracy of the RAW file is the easier PP will be, but by definition, RAW files must be Post Processed.
JMHO

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

JohnSwanda wrote:

It's even more important to get the WB right when shooting JPEGs because if it is very far off, it is difficult to correct in post like you can with RAW.

Not really. Even with JPEGs, I can turn reds into blues with virtually no effort at all. Working with RAW files doesn't give any significant advantage over JPEG files when it comes to adjusting hues. Give it a try and you will come to the same conclusion.

Abo

elliott937 wrote:

Perhaps you guys can answer a question for me. When I was using Photoshop, I was able to use my gray card when photographing art work for my best friend. In Photoshop, I could click the gray with a tool, and it will tell me what color temp I should be using.

I have not yet found that tool in Affinity. Have any of you found that tool in Affinity?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qk0zF9f1yg

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

rook2c4 wrote:

Not really. Even with JPEGs, I can turn reds into blues with virtually no effort at all. Working with RAW files doesn't give any significant advantage over JPEG files when it comes to adjusting hues. Give it a try and you will come to the same conclusion.

I've given it a try and come to the exact opposite conclusion. Maybe you'd like to show us. Below (first photo) is an image I processed from a raw file. Only one color adjustment was made; I set the WB using the WB sample tool and a single mouse click.

The camera auto WB that was set at the time did what auto WB often does and that's the second photo below. How about you adjust the JPEG to look like my version from raw file -- virtually no effort right. Remember I had to work really hard at it with that one mouse click.

Joe

(Download)

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

rook2c4 wrote:

Not really. Even with JPEGs, I can turn reds into blues with virtually no effort at all. Working with RAW files doesn't give any significant advantage over JPEG files when it comes to adjusting hues. Give it a try and you will come to the same conclusion.

I'm not talking about turning reds into blues - who wants to do that anyway. I'm talking about adjusting a WB which is pretty far off in a JPEG, and I have tried it, and it is much more difficult than with RAW. A RAW file can have a WB shot which is way off, and you can adjust it just like to set the right WB before shooting. With a JPEG with a WB, trying to correct one color throws the other color off.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

White balance is a balance of three colors, red, green, blue. If you find a white (or neutral gray) pixel in your image, the way to adjust the white balance is to make all three colors have equal value. So you need to adjust two parameters to make three colors equal value.

Adjusting the temperature will not do it, since that's only one parameter. In LR, there's a WB eyedropper that does that adjustment. It adjusts the temperature and the "tint" to equalize the color values. (The tint is a hue adjustment).

Of course it's not perfect, since it only takes the starting values from one pixel, but it gets you into the ballpark.

And I used LR as an example because that's what I'm familiar with. I expect that most other software will have a similar function available.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

JohnSwanda wrote:

I'm not talking about turning reds into blues - who wants to do that anyway. I'm talking about adjusting a WB which is pretty far off in a JPEG, and I have tried it, and it is much more difficult than with RAW. A RAW file can have a WB shot which is way off, and you can adjust it just like to set the right WB before shooting. With a JPEG with a WB, trying to correct one color throws the other color off.

anotherview Loc: California

My view, too: "AWB usually gets close enough to correct in post processing."

rodpark2 wrote:

I have a good friend and magazine photographer who... (show quote)

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

kymarto wrote:

The reason is that with jpg it is not possible to manipulate the RGB channels independently, as with raw. Basically you simply put global color casts over the chroma values, so that correcting one color often throws other color values off.

Yes, pretty much.