Cermet
New member
Why would you adjust White Balance in Camera when it's so easy to do in post. (This query came to me as I was looking to assign a button to Area and saw the WB on my Z8 Mode dial)
White Balance
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If you have the time and interest in adjusting white balance in every image then there's nothing wrong with shooting raw and adjusting white balance in post processing. But getting the image close to correct in-camera, including white balance, can certainly make sorting, image selection and initial processing faster and easier. Also many photographers including event, wedding, sports and other volume photographers may not have the time to fine tune every image they capture so getting everything as close to the final product as possible in-camera can be essential for some.
But as you note, as long as you shoot raw files you can make white balance adjustments in post without sacrificing image quality.
A very interesting topic - I dont believe there is a "right" and a "wrong" in general terms
Here is an alternative view. I enjoyed watching it
Here is an alternative view. I enjoyed watching it
Thank you for postng this - I found it very interesting. It will make me think more about WB.
If you were shooting say street photography on a day when it was cloudy and overcast or on a beach with blazing sunshine? It could still be tweaked in post if necessary, but many people try to get it right as much as possible in camera.
Cermet
New member
I've been reprocessing pics from my D810 and Z6 and "getting it right in camera" can now be "don't get it wrong by more than 3 stops"
Interesting flick.. had never considered what our human eyes white balance is..
As mentioned, raw files don't assign any white balance. They just store the camera setting but it is not baked in in any way so it is totally fluid in post. Jpeg is baked in, so you want to get it right.
Some folks just set it to the middle in camera, around 5500K. The logic behind this is that if you are shooting a sunrise you want the cast to be a bit warm. And if shooting a nocturne you want it to be a bit cool. Where auto white balance would neutralize it, shooting 5500 would look let you see the warm or cool.
Some folks just set it to the middle in camera, around 5500K. The logic behind this is that if you are shooting a sunrise you want the cast to be a bit warm. And if shooting a nocturne you want it to be a bit cool. Where auto white balance would neutralize it, shooting 5500 would look let you see the warm or cool.
Some color checkers include targets for not only neutral white balance but also several levels of warming or cooling. I guess I trust my eye more these days. I don't always go for neutral, white balance can be a component of color grading for a certain feel.
I have regarded Wb is somewhat subjective, and I approach it that way in my photography. Having said that - the video I posted helped me to think about it more carefully.
Another thing to think of - you can adjust WB and apply two different colour temperatures to the same image - for different parts. EG - a cooler tone on the background, and a warmer tone on the subject. That is sometimes quite useful. Although I don't use WB to set colour, but rather to correct colour at a RAW level.
Another thing to think of - you can adjust WB and apply two different colour temperatures to the same image - for different parts. EG - a cooler tone on the background, and a warmer tone on the subject. That is sometimes quite useful. Although I don't use WB to set colour, but rather to correct colour at a RAW level.
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It's interesting from a technical standpoint how programs like lightroom do the white balance sliders. It turns out that temperature is exactly the same as going into curves and moving rhe white points.
Moving the temp slider to the left lowers the red channel white point at the same time it raises the blue channel white point. Moving the temp slider right raises the red channel white point while lowering the blue channel white point.
Moving the tint slider to the left lowers the combined red and blue white points but raises the green white point. Moving the tint right raises the combined red and blue but lowers the green white point. Since it is only white point it affects highlights more.
I would not adjust white balance in camera; I keep it on auto warm (or whatever Nikon calls it - it's the A plus sun symbol). I also adjust raw in post when needed.
For most photographers, including nature and city scape and street I think adjusting in camera would be more trouble than it is worth. The people who might benefit from it are event and wedding photographers who are in an indoor venue with an artificial light source where they want to match that light source. Or if they are shooting exclusively with flash and want to warm it up a bit to take off the harsh white of the flash.
Yeah, there are many approaches to color correction including using Curves or Levels and their associated eye droppers to rest black and white points. Photo filters can be a quick and easy approach to things like subtly warming or cooling an image similar to what we did with filters in the film days and there are other approaches. But yes, lot's of ways to make color adjustments in editing tools and some like using the Levels eyedroppers aren't immediately obvious.
You can also color correct in alternative color spaces like CMYK or Lab with some powerful differences to working in RGB. Dan Margulis has some great books on pre-press color management and color correction for different situations, his book on Lab color (Photoshop Lab Color, The Canyon Conundrum...) is a fantastic read for nature and landscape photographers among others.
He also delves into some of the relative color topics you touched on in your previous post which is pretty interesting especially considering things like limitations in color gamut for various printing processes and how relative and adjacent color contrast concepts can help restore the feel of an image when the gamut of a particular print process might not be able to accurately reproduce certain colors. He's got a great example of pushing yellows surrounding a Crater Lake image to emphasize the blues of the lake for a commercial offset print process that couldn't recreate the actual blues captured in the scene. IOW, if you can't recreate the original color, sometimes you can create the effect of a more saturated color by pushing complimentary colors that are adjacent to what you're trying to emphasize. Very interesting stuff.
Anthony
Active member
Interesting video, but I do not agree that our eyes see at daylight white balance. Our brains adjust the colour of what we see to match our expectations. With daylight balanced film and tungsten lighting, a photo shot indoors has a very yellow/orange cast which is quite different from our experience of how we saw the scene. In other words, our brains do something similar to auto white balance.
Mal Paso
Active member
When I'm shooting in the studio with strobes I lock the White Balance so color doesn't drift from changes in subject/composition.
I also shoot in Manual mode for the same reason.
Same thing for a series of pictures under the same lighting. If you don't want color or exposure to drift, don't let it.
You can correct color in post but it won't match as close as if you had a fixed White Balance.
I also shoot in Manual mode for the same reason.
Same thing for a series of pictures under the same lighting. If you don't want color or exposure to drift, don't let it.
You can correct color in post but it won't match as close as if you had a fixed White Balance.
Agreed!
We used to run a little exercise in photography and digital darkroom courses that demonstrates this.
We'd hand every participant a piece of white paper, pull the blinds to darken the room and then turn on different lights at different temperatures to light the room. We had warm tungsten lights, 5500K gallery lights and overhead fluorescents we could turn on one set at a time. The basic exercise was to turn on each set of lights in turn, give time for the eyes to adjust and have everyone notice that regardless of the light source the paper looked white. But then quickly change from light group to light group and show how we could see the paper change color and then our brains would adapt it back to white again as we continued to look at it under the same lighting.
The real interesting thing is with some training and practice folks could start to see something closer to the true color temperature based on the light. With practice it's not too hard to start noticing the blue cast created in shadow areas on a bright sunny day or the warmth of indoor tungsten lights prior to capturing a shot but until you tune into it our brains just do something very close to auto white balance adjustment as you posted.
joe43
Well-known member
I set a specific White Balance in camera at the beginning of all nature and wildlife sessions. I do not use any version of Auto WB in my Nikon cameras for nature and wildlife. Yes, if needed, I can adjust the WB in post processing and if needed I usually do it as part of a batch processing action on all of the images in that specific series.
With a specific WB set, I do not see any color shifts that could occur across a series of images. Here is one example: I am taking a series of images of birds and chicks on a single nest. As the adult birds and chicks change position or as the background and foreground elements (and colors) change, you could see some color shifts across different images if you have a auto WB set. If you set a fixed WB, the colors stay the same. Another example could be for birds in flight.
Since I am partially red green and blue grey color blind, I do not trust myself to make accurate color changes in post. This is another reason why I prefer a specific WB set in camera.
With a specific WB set, I do not see any color shifts that could occur across a series of images. Here is one example: I am taking a series of images of birds and chicks on a single nest. As the adult birds and chicks change position or as the background and foreground elements (and colors) change, you could see some color shifts across different images if you have a auto WB set. If you set a fixed WB, the colors stay the same. Another example could be for birds in flight.
Since I am partially red green and blue grey color blind, I do not trust myself to make accurate color changes in post. This is another reason why I prefer a specific WB set in camera.
If using flash indoors I use gels to match the interior lighting.
Me too! I used to do mono conversions in PS using the channel mixer. They looked good to me but everyone else saw a magenta cast. now I use NIK Silver FX for mono conversions and a Colorchecker Passport to get accurate profiles for my cameras and I don't generally mess with colours at all.
Palouse
Well-known member
Here is my contribution to the "argument", er, I mean understanding!
www.diyphotography.net
How to set white balance for perfect landscape colours
How to set white balance for perfect landscape colours
www.diyphotography.net
Another cool exercise is to go outdoors, especially on a bright day, and cover one eye for five minutes, observing the colors especially white objects, then switch which eye is covered and notice how different the scene looks now compared to how it looked with the adapted eye.
Thank youHere is my contribution to the "argument", er, I mean understanding!
How to set white balance for perfect landscape colours
How to set white balance for perfect landscape colours
Cermet
New member
Accurate colour and White Balance are entirely different.
LAB, CMYK and RGB number choice are technical solutions to technical requirements to produce CONSISTENT colour.
Product photography may require consistent colour for branding purposes but individuals perceptions of the same colour can and does differ.
Apart from Nature and PJ COMPETITION images, practically all my pictures are tweaked to evoke a mood, tell a story or otherwise make that image more appealing to me and I am rarely bothered by accuracy of color or often even of subject.
LAB, CMYK and RGB number choice are technical solutions to technical requirements to produce CONSISTENT colour.
Product photography may require consistent colour for branding purposes but individuals perceptions of the same colour can and does differ.
Apart from Nature and PJ COMPETITION images, practically all my pictures are tweaked to evoke a mood, tell a story or otherwise make that image more appealing to me and I am rarely bothered by accuracy of color or often even of subject.
SCoombs
Well-known member
I'm glad to see this video posted as I had come across it recently and wanted to discuss it somewhere because I found the video interesting and even helpful but was a bit uncertain about the central claim made therein that using a daylight white balance will yield photos that are true to the original scene. I seem to recall having taken many photos over the years wherein a white balance of 5500k or so created a photo that was radically incorrect as to what the scene had actually looked like.