Lesson learned or so I thought

[smoke665]

Something like this, I guess. Hah, it's really difficult to decide on one setting!

"No wrong no right, I'm gonna tell you there's no black and no white" from the song "One Vision" by the band "Queen".

Sums up the artistic differences in vision from one photographer to another. I prefer the "Blacks" in the edit by @D7K , to the blue black of your edit, but in the end the only image that counts is what you see as being right.

 

[moriato]

I agree with you, @smoke665 that the edit of @D7K looks better than my own.
Afterward seeing this, I played around more in my editing software and found the "color filter" and that it is possible to adjust the strongness of this. Using this on a neutral bw colored with "warm color filter" and adding high contrast resulted in a somewhat similar result. Without seeing this I would never have tried to use a color filter on a bw image - sounds somewhat useless (but works).

As an old Queen fan I am a little embarrassed I did not remember the quote but enjoyed listening to this great piece of them. Thanks!

 

[smoke665]

What I am not sure about yet, is if the wb setting of the camera influences the taken raw file or if this is only an effect applied to the jpg the camera creates.

Over the years my taste in music has been like a ping pong ball in a hurricane, as I've jumped from one genre to another.

I thought about this comment you made yesterday while setting up. I was supposed to do some outside shots (subject cancelled). My vision was to have a very warm scene, but the cloudy overcast day was not cooperating. I decided to do some test shots of an 18% gray target, one control shot with AWB and no flash, one with just WB set to cloudy, and no flash and one with a blue gelled flash and the camera WB set to cloudy. In LR I used the picker to sample the gray of the target in each. There was a substantial difference in the appearance of the image and the color temperature. The first was like the day drab and cool, the second was warmer but flat, and the last was like a warm sunset with great detail.

So while my first answer was partially correct, a little further explanation might be in order. A more correct answer might be the white balance setting in camera affects the raw file based on the light it receives from the scene. Using my above example, the data is still there in the raw file, that would have allowed me to match the color temperature of all three test images, but the amount of data available in each image is different if that makes any sense.

 

[moriato]

@smoke665 - i have to admit I cannot follow your conclusion yet. I got a feeling of understanding but cannot pinpoint it. Through this thread I came to think that wb has no effect on the raw data, but if you are right it sounds like it affects a kind of shift in intensity.
So, I will check it out too (without any gel, I do not have this and only the builtin flash).
Will keep you posted about my results.

 

[smoke665]

@smoke665 - i have to admit I cannot follow your conclusion yet. I got a feeling of understanding but cannot pinpoint it. Through this thread I came to think that wb has no effect on the raw data, but if you are right it sounds like it affects a kind of shift in intensity.
So, I will check it out too (without any gel, I do not have this and only the builtin flash).
Will keep you posted about my results.

Sorry didn't mean to confuse you, wrote it in a hurry. RAW files are blocks of data, nothing else. Without software to process that data in some way there's no image. "Scene white balance" and camera WB settings are two different things. Scene white balance or color temperature refers to the ambient light being reflected Using Color Temperature Chart to Compare Light Type for Camera Settings which is also data. Camera WB setting is processing information on how to process the data in the RAW file and is recorded in the metadata sidecar of the RAW file. So technically the answer is camera WB setting doesn't change the RAW file it's just processing information on the data.

Warm and cool are colors, I was shooting in "blue" light (heavy overcast sky on the chart in the link). By using a Blue (CTB) gel on the flash I matched the light from the flash on the subject to the ambient (scene temperature) light. Setting the camera WB setting to cloudy which is the corresponding scene temperature, cancelled out the blue, forcing everything to warm. Balancing Color for Flash and Ambient Light using Gels When I imported the RAW file into Lr, ACR uses the camera WB setting recorded in the metadata to display the image as the starting point, but you can still adjust the temperature and tint from there. Color and camera raw. So while the camera WB doesn't change the RAW file, I added data to the RAW file with the addition of the gel, and changed how the camera interpreted that data in the metadata.

 

[moriato]

@smoke665
I think I got it now!
Thank you for your effort! I read through the linked articles and your posts again and now also understand what you are actually doing with these gels on the flash.
So, my understanding is now, that the wb setting does not affect the picture data in raw itself, but is just a setting helping devices/software to interpret the data. That means setting it correctly before shooting is not really necessary but may save work later.
On the other hand balancing or creating a difference in the ambient light on purpose like with a gel on a lightsource can greatly enhance the picture as it actually changes the ambient light recorded as raw data itself and makes any wb setting interpret the data more evenly or more unevenly.

 

[smoke665]

@moriato I think you've got it.

 

[moriato]

Thanks to you!

 

[Original katomi]

Like a lot of others I use AWB and sort and issues pp but I hedge my bets by shooting ing raw and jpg the advice on the colour test card is good. If you are out and don’t have one with you, there are so many workarounds such as a white tissue, the grey of concrete or even a black shoe.

 

[otherprof]

41945 by moriato on ThePhotoForum: Film & Digital Photography Forum

Shibuya crossing
2019/02/02
Olympus E-M10
1/200 f8 iso100 14mm
Manual
WB=300K
14-42mm f3.5-5.6EZ lense

So, I went out to try manual exposure first time and was all the time wondering why everything looked so blueish. Only at home I recognized that I forgot to switch the white balance from indoors to outdoors. Lesson learned, I thought but when trying to fix the wb by posted it, I found that I actually prefer the blueish to the more 'realistic' one (it was very sunny as you can see here: Photo "41946" in the album "TestShots" by moriato).

So, while I aim to use the more close to actual lighting setting from now on (doing the manual wb I leave for later), I am also confused why the blueish 'wrong' color looks so good here. I guess the general cool colors of the surrounding match it, but wonder if I should now also test many different wb settings for various situations.

How do you handle the wb settings normally and what do you think about the coloring it creates in the image at the top?

I think this shows the difference between an accident and a mistake. I really like the blue image. Now you have another technique to use deliberately when you want to use it.