[Cerebum]

When I first started out I was really anal about ensuring I selected the appropriate wb preset. A hundred YouTube videos later I was convinced that awb was the way to go! Now I am constantly reading that anything other than custom wb is wrong. So, I have bought an expodisc off eBay, sourced a grey card and am going to spend the next week or two exclusively shooting with custom white balance. I had a go today, using a piece of white paper as the neutral but it gave me strange results, probably because it was wrong lol. I feel I am heading in the right direction by reducing my reliance on auto, but I would love the input and experience of forum members. What do you prefer? Are there pros and cons I should be aware of?

[DeadJohn]

...A hundred YouTube videos later I was convinced that awb was the way to go! Now I am constantly reading that anything other than custom wb is wrong...

The internet makes it easy to learn things. It also makes it easy to find contradictory information. Photographers can get great results using AWB, a gray card, or other techniques.

My preference is to always use raw format (DNG) and AWB. Raw saves all the color information and allows liberal white balance adjustment if needed; jpg format does not.

When I import photos into Lightroom for processing, the white balance setting defaults to what the camera detected. That's correct in most cases. If I don't like what the camera detected, though, I can ask Lightroom to try its own version of autodetect, or use the color picker, or manually adjust the slider.

[stevebrot]

I had a go today, using a piece of white paper as the neutral but it gave me strange results, probably because it was wrong lol.

Use the gray card as a reference. Most white paper includes UV brightening agents that will skew the results. Another option is to start your session with a shot that includes the gray card in the same light as the subject and shoot RAW. The gray card test exposure may then be used in PP (Lightroom and others include a "color picker/dropper" tool for this purpose) to apply the same WB to all photos from the session. (WB is applied during RAW processing and is fully malleable until the DNG/PEF data is written to a JPEG or TIFF image file.)

As for preference, no valour points are awarded for going fully manual and chances are good that there will not be a significant improvement over auto-WB by doing so. That being the case, there are definitely times when manual intervention makes a good deal of sense, say when elements of the scene represent two or more distinct and conflicting spectral regimes. Only one is generally correct for the subject and manual placement of WB will aid attaining a more pleasing result.

What is my practice?

• I almost always shoot RAW
• I usually have a gray card in the bag
• Auto-WB unless I see an obvious problem.
• If so, I take a test exposure with the gray card in the same light as the subject. I then use the custom WB feature of my K-3 to set a fixed WB and use that setting until either the subject or the light changes. The test gray card exposure is insurance should I wish to use the color picker in Lightroom.

Steve

[Kerrowdown]

How do you set white balance

Always for colour critical imagery, I use an x-rite Colorchecker Passport works absolutely seamlessly with Lightroom.

[swanlefitte]

The deeper philosophical question is when do you want true white?
Should I make a candle flame white? The answer is subjective.
Strobist explores this which will help you in deciding the subjective.
I personally do white balance many ways so I won't address that.
Strobist: Lighting 103: Introduction

[stevebrot]

Always for colour critical imagery, I use an x-rite Colorchecker Passport works absolutely seamlessly with Lightroom.

That works well for creating/applying per-session ICC profiles, but color white balance may still be an issue. Do you just leave it on Auto or do you grab it from the 18% gray patch on the Colorchecker? (This is something I have read about and know the process, but have never done.)


Steve

[photoptimist]

One issue with "white" paper is that many papers contain UV-excited brighteners or blueish dyes that trick the eyes into seeing a brighter "white" but make the paper unsuitable for getting an accurate an WB.

A second issue is that the orientation of whatever grey card can affect WB results. If the subject is lit from above by the sun but the photographer holds the gray card vertically (pointing horizontally at the camera) then it will get the wrong WB.

The third issue is crazy stuff like the color of the photographer's shirt which can reflect highly colored light and affect the measured WB.

Measuring WB correctly requires a bit of thinking about what's lighting the subject and taking care to measure the WB of that light.

Or you could shoot RAW and fix it in post.

[Kerrowdown]

do you grab it from the 18% gray patch on the Colorchecker?

Yep, thats the one for me for WB, then LR can do colours afterwards too.

[Dartmoor Dave]

The deeper philosophical question is when do you want true white?

That's certainly my own thinking when it comes to white balance. Are there actually any true whites in the scene that I want to render as true white? Then I use my calibrated white card (which doesn't have the UV problems that others have mentioned). If the important thing is the feel of the ambient light then I shoot at 5000K, to capture the variation in the ambient light away from direct overhead sunlight. And if that means that whites don't come out looking like pure white, that's fine, since they didn't look pure white under the ambient light to begin with.

As far as I can see, the main outcome of people balancing every shot relative to pure white in this digital age is that photographs taken all over the world end up looking the same.

[Cerebum]

Interesting I think I will give it a go so I can better understand the process then I will have the tools to do what works best. The expodisc may be fun, it only cost £5. I haven't paid enough attention to wb so if nothing else it will be a good excersize thanks for your input

---------- Post added 07-26-19 at 02:15 PM ----------

That's certainly my own thinking when it comes to white balance. Are there actually any true whites in the scene that I want to render as true white? Then I use my calibrated white card (which doesn't have the UV problems that others have mentioned). If the important thing is the feel of the ambient light then I shoot at 5000K, to capture the variation in the ambient light away from direct overhead sunlight. And if that means that whites don't come out looking like pure white, that's fine, since they didn't look pure white under the ambient light to begin with.

As far as I can see, the main outcome of people balancing every shot relative to pure white in this digital age is that photographs taken all over the world end up looking the same.

My ultimate aim is to get it right in camera and minimise the amount I need to do in post. I know what you mean about avoiding false uniformity. The Sony photosi have seen taken with an A7iii seem do have this lack of character, but i wouldnt say that to someone shooting with one lol I want to understand white balance so I can use it as another artistic tool

[stevebrot]

My ultimate aim is to get it right in camera and minimise the amount I need to do in post.

Good luck on "getting it right", in-camera. There may be some satisfaction in doing the work, but at best, all one gets is a reasonable set of correction factors (four numbers) that will form a good base for color adjustment in PP, assuming that one is shooting DNG or PEF. If shooting JPEG, "getting it right" makes a lot more sense due to the adjustment being baked into the image with little recourse for adjustment later.

There is a misconception that WB has something to do with sensor spectral sensitivity when the truth is that the sensor records the same voltages regardless of WB settings. WB adjustment is always applied as part of PP. Doing WB manually to "get it right" only allows one to arbitrarily assign WB as sun, shade, cloudy, etc. or enter a °K value or use the camera as a colorimeter to read a gray card estimate of the spectral composition of light striking the subject. In each case, one is saving a setting for future reference when processing the RAW and where "getting it right" may well wash the "gold" out of the "golden hour" and the "blue" out of the "blue hour" and the life out of a flame.


Steve

(...just thinking that auto-WB does a pretty good job of not taking the correction too far...)

[ismaelg]

Hello,

My own personal preference: I never bother with WB until I sit to Post Process the images. That's one of the main reasons I shoot raw and auto-WB. As Steve said, it has no effect in spectral sensitivity so I can play with it for as long as I want or need in PP.
I don't always need true whites or grays. I shoot a lot of ballet and dance recitals with color lights changing every few seconds. That would be a nightmare to try to follow and "correct" WB will kill the effect.

Thanks,

[Cerebum]

I am beginning to think the importance of perfect white balance is another YouTube video filler I save raw and jpeg but rarely use the jpeg. I think I will treat it as an excersize before returning to auto so I can concentrate on other stuff thanks for all your input. I can watch all the vids in the world but there is no substitute for experience ..... Or for that matter, Pentax Forums

[Dartmoor Dave]

I think the famous white & gold / blue & black dress is always worth remembering in any white balance discussion, because it's such a startling example of how differently we all perceive colour: The dress - Wikipedia

Personally I rarely see true whites in the real world, and I think AWB always overcorrects drastically, which suggests that my own eyes and brain don't do much colour correction inside my head. Other people think that AWB does a great job of capturing the world as they see it, so presumably they actually see a more colour corrected world inside their heads than I do. None of us is right or wrong; we just see things differently. And when it comes to white balance in photography, whatever captures the world the way you personally see it is what's right for you.

(For the record, I see the dress as white & gold.)

[Cerebum]

I think the famous white & gold / blue & black dress is always worth remembering in any white balance discussion, because it's such a startling example of how differently we all perceive colour: The dress - Wikipedia

(For the record, I see the dress as white & gold.)

White and gold here too. I also think awb can be a bit drastic although, prior to this conversation I wondered if it was my colour settings