is there a point in adjusting white balance when

[investmenttechnology]

you can fix everything up in the postprocessing phase?

 

[Overread36]

Depends on your situation. First up adjusting white balance at the time of shooting removes a stage of editing that you have to perform, and if you are taking photos with the intent of producing colour accurate reproductions you certainly need to make sure that the white balance is correct.

If you are shooting RAW then you can certainly adjust the white balance later to your hearts content and since most presentations of photos are for a pleasing appearance not pure colour accuracy its certainly possible to leave the white balance in auto mode and to adjust later in editing (its one of the powerful points of working in RAW as opposed to working in JPEG).

Othertimes it can simply be part of a photographers workflow to get it right in the camera before editing - reducing the editing time ,but also ensuring the best possible start and workflow - remembering that the whitebalance at the time of shooting is what your LCD preview shot and histogram will be based of - so a whitebalance too far out might well missrepresent what you captured at the time.

 

[Compaq]

I am one of those who shoot raw and leave WB at auto works nice, just takes a few seconds to correct in pp if it's too off.

 

[ann]

If your using jpeg files, it is a bit trickier to deal with correcting white balance so better to get it right in camera (along with most other things).

RAW seems to deal better with these changes.

 

[Rosshole]

For me, the point is that it takes much less time to get it right the first time, then to correct every photo afterwards.

 

[investmenttechnology]

yeah, I shoot in RAW and use Lightroom, I just don't really see the point of WB function in my camera.

 

[pixilstudio]

I couldn't disagree more. i shoot raw and WB is important to get as close as possible in the camera. not only does it save time in pp but I believe you can more accurately get the correct colors if you start with a good temp. and yes i use Lightroom. just my 2¢

 

[2WheelPhoto]

I leave mine in auto too 90% of the time unless its purpose (such as a sunset) I bump the WB up or such.

Cam in "WB auto always" is a lot easier for me than fooling with each pic or set every time I move around. 1 slider in PP is all it is, and usually the D7000 and D80 is spot on.

 

[480sparky68 67]

Click here for a thread I started this morning on this very subject. You can see from it that WBing a raw is very easy to do and accurate to boot.

That said, I still try to get WB as close to in-camera as possible as I generally shoot raw+jpeg. Although I usually work with just the raw files, having the jpegs is handy for a quick email., forum post, and submission to the Copyright Office.

 

[manaheim]

Depends on your situation. First up adjusting white balance at the time of shooting removes a stage of editing that you have to perform, and if you are taking photos with the intent of producing colour accurate reproductions you certainly need to make sure that the white balance is correct.

If you are shooting RAW then you can certainly adjust the white balance later to your hearts content and since most presentations of photos are for a pleasing appearance not pure colour accuracy its certainly possible to leave the white balance in auto mode and to adjust later in editing (its one of the powerful points of working in RAW as opposed to working in JPEG).

Othertimes it can simply be part of a photographers workflow to get it right in the camera before editing - reducing the editing time ,but also ensuring the best possible start and workflow - remembering that the whitebalance at the time of shooting is what your LCD preview shot and histogram will be based of - so a whitebalance too far out might well missrepresent what you captured at the time.

There are cases here where your camera can guess wrong so severely that you wind up losing some dynamic range in your colors because you have to shift the color balance SO far in another direction. I've never had it be an absolute disaster, but there have definitely been cases where I have lost some image quality. Overall, I'd say no... there isn't too much point... however, if you have the time to be more careful with your pictures to maximize quality, then I would say yes... there is value.

 

[dakkon76]

Sparky, I looked at your initial images and it sure looked like the control picture had a little more saturation in it than the WB adjusted pic. I didn't download the images to compare more closely, but I planned on following up on the thread to see what the results were. Was this something you were noticing, or did you find they were pretty equal?