White Balance

SoulfulRecover · Nov 28, 2016

I have a basic white balance card kit, White;Grey;Black.

Can I just use the dropper in Lightroom to select the proper white balance using those cards or do I need something like the X-rite Color Checker Passport with the software to create custom profiles for proper white balance?

I guess, why should I spend 100.00 on the x-rite kit?

Ysarex · Nov 28, 2016

You don't need the Passport unless you want to build your own input profiles (you probably don't). So yes, just use your existing card or a Styrofoam coffee cup.

Joe

SoulfulRecover · Nov 28, 2016

Great to know! I wasn't sure why I was seeing it done both ways and if there was an advantage to one over the other.

Ysarex · Nov 28, 2016

SoulfulRecover said:
Great to know! I wasn't sure why I was seeing it done both ways and if there was an advantage to one over the other.

I literally just finished 5 minutes ago going over this one too many times with one of my students and I sent her this illustration. The text was written for her.

Joe

adamhiram · Nov 28, 2016

The one thing I would add to this is to make sure light is hitting your gray card (or styrofoam cup) at the same angle as your primary subject, or you may end up setting the white balance based on the wrong light source, or light reflected off of a colored surface.

SoulfulRecover · Nov 28, 2016

so another question, should I keep my camera on auto white balance or should I try to put it on a specific setting like cloudy, sunny, flash . . . or does it not overly matter? I typically kept it on auto

photo1x1.com · Nov 28, 2016

SoulfulRecover said:
so another question, should I keep my camera on auto white balance or should I try to put it on a specific setting like cloudy, sunny, flash . . . or does it not overly matter? I typically kept it on auto

It doesn´t really matter. We had a similar discussion regarding what white balance to set when you shoot raw recently. I usually set my white balance to daylight, no matter what conditions I shoot in. Others said they use AWB because it usually gives them a proper preview in the display which I thought sounds more logical than my approach

. Especially when you show the images in the display to others who are not familiar with raw shooting and white balancing in software.

Dave442 · Nov 28, 2016

Joe's note about making the reference shot is great, so many times I take a shot like his example thinking the camera can handle it and then it is just a guess as to where to go with the WB when you look at the image a few days later.

If you want to have the image on the back of the camera be close to what you want then it can be done by setting a Preset WB. I've done this by just wrapping a piece of a white plastic bag over the lens, pointing it at the light source and making a Preset. I think there are some fancier tools for this, but I would only go for that if shooting JPG and you really need to hit the right WB from the start.

Ysarex · Nov 28, 2016

SoulfulRecover said:
so another question, should I keep my camera on auto white balance or should I try to put it on a specific setting like cloudy, sunny, flash . . . or does it not overly matter? I typically kept it on auto

If you shoot and process raw files then photo1x1 is correct. It doesn't matter where it's set in camera. If you want a camera JPEG however it does matter and in that case you want to think about using the card to set a custom WB before shooting -- more trouble but it makes for better JPEGs.

Joe