white balance? I was just wondering when i do a manual white balance outside say in the shade if i move to the sunny area or turn direction do i have to do another manual balance?

kurme Loc: Sudbury, Ont

I was just wondering when i do a manual white balance outside say in the shade if i move to the sunny area or turn direction do i have to do another manual balance? thanks

skidooman Loc: Minnesota

kurme wrote:

I was just wondering when i do a manual white balance outside say in the shade if i move to the sunny area or turn direction do i have to do another manual balance? thanks

Any time your light changes, a new custom white should be obtained. Different light has a different color temp,,so the answer is yes.

jimni2001 Loc: Sierra Vista, Arizona, USA

Unless you are shooting in raw you do need to change the white balance when the light changes. With raw you set the white balance in post processing.

nitejdp53 Loc: ATX

If you shoot raw just leave it in AWB then make your adjustments in the digital dark room.

Sparkleplenty

If I don't shoot raw, and leave camera's WB on auto, can I make any adjustment on Picasa to improve pic?

nitejdp53 Loc: ATX

When you shoot in raw none of the in camera settings are permanent. You have the ability to change everything in the digital darkroom. With jpegs the possessing takes place in your camera and the raw data is discarded. Therefore you have a lot less control over your picture. WB is one of the settings that is set in the camera for jpegs. I shoot raw and use corel after shot to make adjustments.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Color balance is extremely important and you should do whatever you can to get is right when you take the picture. The problems with doing it in post-processing are that you need a true white in the picture and you will never remember exactly how the scene looked. Therefore, you will play around a lot and guess as to what it was or what you like. UHH has many, many posts on this.

I have found the best way to get the most accurate color balance is with an Expodisc.

JoeB Loc: Mohawk Valley, NY

abc1234 wrote:

Color balance is extremely important and you should do whatever you can to get is right when you take the picture. The problems with doing it in post-processing are that you need a true white in the picture and you will never remember exactly how the scene looked. Therefore, you will play around a lot and guess as to what it was or what you like. UHH has many, many posts on this.

I have found the best way to get the most accurate color balance is with an Expodisc.

I too use the Expodisc for white balance. Do you meter for incident or reflected light? The instructions say that you can use either, I have tried both and have not noticed a significant difference, was wondering if you have? I like to get the white balance correct when I take the photo even though you can adjust it in PP.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

JoeB wrote:

quote=abc1234 Color balance is extremely importan... (show quote)

Exposure and color balance are two separate issues. Depending upon the scene and where you stand, incident versus reflected value may or may not vary. I always turn to the camera's histogram to adjust exposure. I assert that using the Expodisc and histogram give you the very best pictures and then you can do whatever you want later. At least, you have as close to perfect as a file can be. (This should be a rather controversial assertion if anyone is following this thread.)

I double check the Expodisc file in ACR. Take the white point tool and navigate around the center of the picture to find the maximum RGB values. Click and you normalize the color temperature and tint. Adjust those sliders to minimize the color casts in the histogram. The color temperature and tint will now be exceeding close to the values for your pictures. Now you are done with the color balance unless some pictures were taken under different lighting.

JoeB Loc: Mohawk Valley, NY

abc1234 wrote:

quote=JoeB quote=abc1234 Color balance is extrem... (show quote)

rebride

Sparkleplenty wrote:

If I don't shoot raw, and leave camera's WB on auto, can I make any adjustment on Picasa to improve pic?

Yes, Use Neutral Color Picker for white balance. It's in the second tab with the sun/moon icon.
You can make a lot of adjustments in Picasa.
You can do RAW in Picasa, depending on camera.

Raybazan Loc: Rockport, TX

Thanks for that info, i.e., while shooting in RAW white balance is not an issue. Good to know. Once again thank you. Ray

Sparkleplenty

Thanks, glad to get some info that will be easy to remember. Bye

rebride wrote:

Sparkleplenty wrote:

If I don't shoot raw, and leave camera's WB on auto, can I make any adjustment on Picasa to improve pic?

Yes, Use Neutral Color Picker for white balance. It's in the second tab with the sun/moon icon.
You can make a lot of adjustments in Picasa.
You can do RAW in Picasa, depending on camera.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Raybazan wrote:

Thanks for that info, i.e., while shooting in RAW white balance is not an issue. Good to know. Once again thank you. Ray

I have seen this statement before. People explain this by saying that raw's lack the in-camera processing to get jpg's and that you can adjust the white balance later.

Sorry, but I do not understand or agree with this assertion. First of all, I can see different color balances both on camera and later in Adobe Bridge. One might suggest that I am really looking at the jpg and in going from the raw to the jpg, color balance is added. Even if that is true, this implies that the raw file is still recording something about color balance.

Second, how is one to remember the scene's color balance when you get to post-processing? And you can adjust color balance widely to create different moods or interpretations of a shot. If (and this is a big if) you want to reproduce the original colors, then you must do the best when taking the picture. Some photographers do alter the color balance to create a certain interpretation but many do so because they simply do not know how the picture should look.

jimni2001 Loc: Sierra Vista, Arizona, USA

abc1234 wrote:

quote=Raybazan Thanks for that info, i.e., while ... (show quote)

I absolutely agree that you should do the best you can do to get the best photo that you can get. Raw files have not had while balance set. They are tagged with whatever the camera's setting was, (either that which was manually set or via auto-white-balance), but the actual data has not been changed. This allows one to set any colour temperature and white balance one wishes after the fact with no image degradation. It should be understood that once the file has been converted from the linear space and has had a gamma curve applied (such as in a JPG) white balance can no longer be properly done. So yes raw has a white balance set when the shot is taken but If it is not correct then it is changeable without damaging the photograph where any processing of jpeg will degrade the quality of the photo even rotating it.