Questions for 10D users

steve817 · Sep 7, 2004

1. What white balance setting do you tend to use? Do you leave it on auto or change it to tungsten, sunlight and so on?

2. Is their anyone here that can help me with the proper use of the unsharp mask in photoshop? I know what it does, but I'm not sure I understand how and when to apply it properly.

Thanks,

Steve

Digital Matt · Sep 7, 2004

I have a 300D, but the white balance is essentially the same. Are you shooting in RAW? If so, auto white balance is fine. You can fine tune it with your RAW software in post anyway.

As far as USM, there's lots of different methods. Fred Miranda swears by only sharpening edges, and he has some methods for achieving that. Check his website. Some people believe that you should convert your image to LAB color and only sharpen in the lightness channel.

I myself will do a "low pass" usm, to add some contrast, somewhere around 20%, 5, 0 (give or take), and then another at 300%, 0.30, or if that's too strong, 500%, 0.2, 0.

Experiment, but always sharpen as your last step, and I recommend duplicating your background layer and sharpening that. That way if you don't like the results, you can adjust the layer opacity and get just what you want.

green · Sep 7, 2004

typically i just use the auto white balance too... i'd forget to change it when i changed locations and then it would be tougher to adjust later. fine tuning is easy in photoshop. i think the only time i use the different colour temps is when i'm doing still lifes in-studio, and i'm looking for a certain look.

Varthlokkur · Sep 7, 2004

I always use auto but I know a professional who likes to change it. Espically to the shade mode for outside portraits.

voodoocat · Sep 7, 2004

For me, one of the biggest selling points in digital was the ability to set the white balance for every situation. I generally shoot RAW and edit it later... or bring a gray card and do custom WB which yields the best results.

mrsid99 · Sep 7, 2004

So far the AWB on my 10D has been right on so I've had no need to change, I guess I might try twiddling it sometime and see what effects I get.

steve817 · Sep 9, 2004

voodoocat said:
For me, one of the biggest selling points in digital was the ability to set the white balance for every situation. I generally shoot RAW and edit it later... or bring a gray card and do custom WB which yields the best results.

Please excuse my ignorance, but why use a gray card for white balance?
It seems as though you would need a white card.

Digital Matt said:
I have a 300D, but the white balance is essentially the same. Are you shooting in RAW? If so, auto white balance is fine. You can fine tune it with your RAW software in post anyway.

So far I have only shot at Large Fine JPG. I haven't really seen any advantage to shooting RAW. What I do is save them as TIF when I put them on my computer, make my changes and then save them as JPG. I know there is some loss of data but none that myself or anyone else has been able to see.

Peldor · Sep 9, 2004

steve817 said:
Please excuse my ignorance, but why use a gray card for white balance?
It seems as though you would need a white card.

This may help
http://www.camerahobby.com/EBook-Metering_Chapter3.htm

and this is a grey card off of GIS

Big Mike · Sep 9, 2004

steve817 said:
Please excuse my ignorance, but why use a gray card for white balance?
It seems as though you would need a white card.

All camera meters are calibrated to expose for an average scene. Which they figure to be the same reflectivity as 18% gray. So if you hold a gray card in the same light as you subject and take a meter reading...you will get the proper exposure.

This is why good photographers will adjust the settings that their camera gives them. The camera will always try to make the exposure gray. So you have to out smart the camera when the scene is lighter or darker than the average. For white (snow etc) you add more exposure...for dark you subtract exposure.

So far I have only shot at Large Fine JPG. I haven't really seen any advantage to shooting RAW. What I do is save them as TIF when I put them on my computer, make my changes and then save them as JPG. I know there is some loss of data but none that myself or anyone else has been able to see.

When you shoot in RAW, the camera records the file without locking in the white balance setting. You can later adjust the white balance to the setting you think is best (with the supplied software).

While you can adjust the photo in Photoshop or other program...it's not quite the same.

steve817 · Sep 9, 2004

Big Mike said:
When you shoot in RAW, the camera records the file without locking in the white balance setting. You can later adjust the white balance to the setting you think is best (with the supplied software).

While you can adjust the photo in Photoshop or other program...it's not quite the same.

Hmm....now that's something to think about. Guess I had better go get some more CF cards.