Folks keep saying that the white balance can’t be changed on jpegs. I found an old Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 disc my kids had given me years ago. Loaded it and it will change the white balance on jpegs. You have three choices, as shot, auto or custom.

I had taken photos of completed construction at work using my Canon Rebel XS. A while back I was messing with the white balance at home with mixed LED-fluorescent light. The construction photos were taken with the camera set to auto mode. On a Nikon, auto ignores manual changes made to iso, WB, etc. Not so on the Canon to my surprise. VERY blue photos that couldn’t be fixed using Picasa or NX2. The Lightroom program easily fixed them using the auto WB setting. I don’t see Lightroom being useful for much else, but it saved my butt this time.

A while back I asked a question about raw vs jpeg and 21 pages later I was pretty well convinced that you can fiddle with the colors on a jpeg but not do an actual white balance alteration to one. I’m now convinced that you can do one but it will never be truly accurate, if there actually is such a thing as an accurate color replication.

I’ve learned from automotive painting that actually seeing color variations is where us men come up short. If you want to see if your new paint is a good match to the old one, you better call in your wife, mom, sister, daughter or the crazy cat woman next door because it’s a known fact that women see colors better than men. If any men on this forum claim to have superior color differentiation over some other guy or gal, they need to stop by the local body shop and ask a painter. Any honest one will confirm what I’ve said. And if the painter says otherwise, don’t take your car to him for a paint job. Besides, most men have no idea of what color taupe or sea foam is. But women do!

If you use the wrong white balance on a raw image you still won’t get accurate results. Which is one problem I’ve found with standardized WB settings on a camera or photo program. My kitchen lights are a mixture of LED and fluorescent bulbs, which really confuses a camera. And no WB setting on a camera can get it right. I guess the answer is to use the gray card thing for the kitchen and another for the living room. Or change out all the bulbs to LED, which fortunately are getting less expensive.

If your photography is for the purpose of scientific or engineering studies, I can surely understand the need for an accurate color setting. On the other hand, I have read articles that tell other photographers how to simulate the golden hour or the blue hour by making color adjustments.

I confess that I generally take a similar approach, not particularly to fool anyone but to get what I consider a pleasing picture. Maybe the lighting when shooting was not ideal; no problem I can make a little adjustment in PP. I don't really see any harm in this, but I can understand how old-time photographers who did not have this freedom in post-processing and who spent years learning to "get it right in the camera" are troubled by the changing times.

If your photography is for the purpose of scientific or engineering studies, I can surely understand the need for an accurate color setting. On the other hand, I have read articles that tell other photographers how to simulate the golden hour or the blue hour by making color adjustments.

I confess that I generally take a similar approach, not particularly to fool anyone but to get what I consider a pleasing picture. Maybe the lighting when shooting was not ideal; no problem I can make a little adjustment in PP. I don't really see any harm in this, but I can understand how old-time photographers who did not have this freedom in post-processing and who spent years learning to "get it right in the camera" are troubled by the changing times.