i think this turned out pretty good.

[tecboy]

Seriously, you don't know anything about white balance?

 

[Ysarex]

the embossed looking watermark on the sign is kind of neat, i think i like the house number on the sing better though. that version looks a bit darker and a bit too saturated. not sure i like how the glass looks in that. my eyes are drawn to the bright spot on the bottom left corner, the poles its self looks to be a deeper black which i do like. over all if you look past the watermark i like how it looked the way i had it better.

what is wrong with auto white balance, not sure how you even set up your own white balance, i know you can get a card or what not but i am not sure you can always use a white balance card in every situation.

thinking about it that tree is directly behind the pole so i am not sure how much that is gonna blur out even at 1.8

See the color difference? A white balance value is required for all digital cameras. A measurement of the light color allows us to render the color of objects accurately. The problem is that the color of the light is changed by reflecting off a colored object. So to measure the light color we need to either 1. measure it directly before it reflects from an object or 2. measure from a know reference target that is spectrally neutral (doesn't change the light color). Your camera can't do 1. and if you don't want to do 2. the camera has an option to guess -- auto white balance. In fairness it is an educated guess, but it's a guess and it will be wrong to some degree varying with the lighting conditions. In your photo the camera AWB guess gave you a photo with a pretty obvious cyan/blue color cast.

To do better than AWB you can either set a custom WB on the camera or shoot a reference target to use with raw files when you process them. The second option is best if you are going to process raw files.

Joe

edit: How do you calibrate your display?

 

[jcdeboever]

Danny, if you want to dial in, listen to Derrel in this thread. He is an expert and offers objective analysis and direction. He broke it down and it was favorable with fine tuning. You are a fine artist and are feeling your way into other subjects. I applaud you for wanting to get better. You are awesome in my mind.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[dannylightning]

Derrel always has good advice, I already know this..

I guess I should say only way I know to set custom white balance is to shoot a a white balance card before you shoot in each location, . the preset white balance settings look funky most of the time, auto usually looks descent so I have always used that, quite. A few good photogropher seem to use auto

Sent from my XT1028 using Tapatalk

 

[Tim Tucker]

White balance and correct colour:

As long as there is no defect in your eyesight, we all see colour in much the same way. There is no real difference in how you see a shade of green to how others see the same shade. There is however a difference in what we perceive to be a pleasing colour balance, the way we remember or recall the colours of a scene and our emotional response to certain colours and combinations. So a visually accurate rendition of colours is not an artistic or subjective approach because it is very certain that if you did reproduce the colours accurately it would turn out differently to the way you remember it.
The colour of an object is very dependant on the light that's reflected and the surface it reflects from. So the colour balance of the illuminated light and the texture of the paper you print on both affect the visual colours of your print as well, and it goes without saying that the colours generated by the additive colour system of your computer screen will look different again.
However if you had a product that you had to display across a number of different media, where correct colour rendition was important then you would use a reference chart so you could manage the colours and produce accuracy over that variety of media and printing processes. This is called colour management, and to be honest it won't really help your development. Quite the opposite really because if you want accurate colour then you have to maintain accurate colour. You can't be tweaking saturation, vibrance, or colour contrast for any pleasing effect because it will destroy your goal of accurate colour, the whole point of using a reference chart.
Instead learn about colour theory, how we see and perceive colour.
I use auto white balance on raw files because it is fully correctable later.

Your actual image again contains elements of a good photo. In this one you have a sharp subject separated from the background by focus. It is good and well executed. It is also good that you are progressing as you will start to combine these different elements.

The image is shot in un-interesting light, and is unbalanced as Derrel says. It is also a mundane subject being a modern house number/outside light decorated with some plastic leaves. But carry on shooting them because once you start to recognise and shoot the "interesting and dramatic light" you'll spend far more time hiking to remote locations and leaning on fenceposts waiting for the moment that never comes than you do now.

A bit more balance as directed by Derrel:

And loose the logo.

 

[jsecordphoto]

I know you made another thread about selling prints, the discussion here just goes to show that you are not ready at all. There seems to be a lot of coddling here on the forum lately rather than giving realistic advice. Not to discourage you from shooting, it's great that you're asking questions and everything, but you're getting waaay ahead of yourself thinking about offering images for sale when you don't even understand basic things like fine tuning WB

 

[tecboy]

Here you will understand more about white balance.

Understanding White Balance

 

[Ysarex]

Derrel always has good advice, I already know this..

I guess I should say only way I know to set custom white balance is to shoot a a white balance card before you shoot in each location, . the preset white balance settings look funky most of the time, auto usually looks descent so I have always used that, quite. A few good photogropher seem to use auto

Sent from my XT1028 using Tapatalk

I agree the preset white balance settings aren't very useful. Shoot a white balance reference card. The card is free and easy to carry with your camera. You simply need a piece of white Styrofoam. Take a moment to shoot the card in the lighting condition you plan to work and then take photos. When you go to process the raw files open the photo of the card and read the values for temp and tint from the card using LR's WB dropper. Transfer those values to the photos taken in that light. That gives you an accurate starting position. Here's an example that shows the difference using my camera.

I shot the card (always with my cameras) before I took some photos. Otherwise I had the camera set to AWB as I don't care about the camera JPEGs. The camera AWB rendered the scene with a blue/cyan cast. My hand is so severely blue you'd think I was a fashion model or a corpse. The RGB values for the card show the problem: that 26 point difference between Red and Blue is major. In the raw file that's a full 1000 degree K difference. The card (white Styrofoam food container) reflects back the light with the color unchanged and that allows us to use the card as a white balance reference. It's easy to get into the habit of using it.

There's no rule that says you have to use accurate color -- you can change it to what you like, but it's really helpful to have a consistent starting place from which to do that.

Joe

 

[Peeb]

I know you made another thread about selling prints, the discussion here just goes to show that you are not ready at all. There seems to be a lot of coddling here on the forum lately rather than giving realistic advice. Not to discourage you from shooting, it's great that you're asking questions and everything, but you're getting waaay ahead of yourself thinking about offering images for sale when you don't even understand basic things like fine tuning WB

Ha ha! I read this thread to start with a bunch of toxic slaps to an enthusiastic OP- no constructive criticism, just criticism. Later, a few superstars (like Derrel, who is awesome) gave some technical advice without issuing a beat-down, but overall, I see VERY LITTLE 'coddling' going on in this forum. In this thread in particular, the OP has been a very good sport about the raft of condescending dismissals of his work. I doubt he feels 'coddled'.

My opinion.

 

[jcdeboever]

I know you made another thread about selling prints, the discussion here just goes to show that you are not ready at all. There seems to be a lot of coddling here on the forum lately rather than giving realistic advice. Not to discourage you from shooting, it's great that you're asking questions and everything, but you're getting waaay ahead of yourself thinking about offering images for sale when you don't even understand basic things like fine tuning WB

Ha ha! I read this thread to start with a bunch of toxic slaps to an enthusiastic OP- no constructive criticism, just criticism. Later, a few superstars (like Derrel, who is awesome) gave some technical advice without issuing a beat-down, but overall, I see VERY LITTLE 'coddling' going on in this forum. In this thread in particular, the OP has been a very good sport about the raft of condescending dismissals of his work. I doubt he feels 'coddled'.

My opinion.

Well said. Danny is a good egg.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[dannylightning]

what if you shoot the card but what you are shooting is far away, will that throw it off.

i rarely change my white balance in lightroom, i just played with it on a few of those landscape shots i took and warming it up a little does seem to make things look better.

there is also a dropper on lightroom to change the white balance, i assume you need to click that on something that is white for it to work correctly? not all shots have something pure white in them.

i shoot raw.. that export to jpeg.

 

[tecboy]

It is all good. I remember Danny at Helifreak. He learned fast, and he will learn fast in this forum.

 

[Ysarex]

what if you shoot the card but what you are shooting is far away, will that throw it off.

The key is to use the card in the same light. If the sun is shinning and you hold the card in the sun then that's the same light for anything you see that's in the sun. If the day is overcast and you hold the card in overcast light then that's the same light for anything else you see in that same overcast light doesn't matter if it's right in front of you or 200 yards away. The mistake would be to hold the card in the shade when you want to photograph something in the sun.

i rarely change my white balance in lightroom, i just played with it on a few of those landscape shots i took and warming it up a little does seem to make things look better.

there is also a dropper on lightroom to change the white balance, i assume you need to click that on something that is white for it to work correctly? not all shots have something pure white in them.

That's the point of the card. Even things that seem to be white usually aren't really white -- Styrofoam is. If you have the card photo as one in a set, then you use that LR WB dropper to read the card -- remember the temp and tint numbers you get from reading the card and just type them in to the other photos. That get's you as close as possible to accurate WB. It's really helpful to always start there. If you begin from a known point of standardization you'll more quickly and consistently determine what you personally like as a final result.

I'm a realist personally and I work carefully to make the colors in my photo be the colors that were really there. There's no rule that you or anyone else should do the same, but if you're going to finally adjust the color one way or the other from what point are you making that personal shift? AWB in your camera is erratic -- that's a bad platform to try and work from.

Joe

i shoot raw.. that export to jpeg.

 

[dannylightning]

i mainly do the bird/wildlife photos, i never know if i will be pointing the lens into the light, shade, a dark tree, a hole in a log, and when i do snap a shot often its a need to shoot now before its gone situation so i am not sure a card is going to be helpful for what i usually shoot. most wildlife guys i have talked to seem to use auto white balance and that is probably why.

for landscapes i might try to start using one, ill see if i can find some laying around , i guess my main concern at the moment is just getting a well composed photo when it comes to landscapes.

 

[Ysarex]

i mainly do the bird/wildlife photos, i never know if i will be pointing the lens into the light, shade, a dark tree, a hole in a log, and when i do snap a shot often its a need to shoot now before its gone situation so i am not sure a card is going to be helpful for what i usually shoot. most wildlife guys i have talked to seem to use auto white balance and that is probably why.

for landscapes i might try to start using one, ill see if i can find some laying around , i guess my main concern at the moment is just getting a well composed photo when it comes to landscapes.

Direction doesn't change the light color so into the light or not doesn't matter. Assume you're out on a sunny day looking for wildlife. You have two basic options at that time: the wildlife is in the sun or in the shade. Take two card shots: sun and shade.

Joe