Question regarding White Balance

Holly · Jul 21, 2006

I have been playing with manual quit often lately and Automatic seems to be a no no for me lately... IN Some pictures I notice a tinge of blue.. I know this has to do with the white balance... However, Im not sure HOW to adjust white balance and SEE that it is set correctly to give my pictures the overall god color...

With that said.. HOW do you adjust this and KNOW for sure its ok? IS it ok to use the PreAdjusted white balance?

Digital Matt · Jul 21, 2006

The only way to really adjust it and KNOW it's ok is to use a color temp meter, and set the color temp of the camera accordingly, but nobody is going to do that with digital. Are you shooting in RAW? You'll find that WB is not an issue if you do. Otherwise, your options are to do a custom white balance, or use one of the preset modes. They are usually not bad, and if you are able to correctly identify the type of lighting you are in, IE sun/shade/tungesten/flourescent, then you should do well with that. It's never going to be perfect, and you'll always want to double check the color on the computer in post, before printing anyway.

ksmattfish · Jul 21, 2006

I always keep my wb set to daylight, just like if my camera was loaded with daylight balanced film (which is all I ever used), and shoot raw so I can adjust it later if need be.

PNA · Jul 21, 2006

If you have PS....in Camera Raw there is a white balance control. I just recently found it myself. Shoot in raw and open the raw file in PS, it converts to camera raw and the controls are there. It doesn't matter what your setting are on the camera (per Nikon).

Also unclick "Use Auto Adjustment", little triangle at the end of settings.

bigfatbadger · Jul 21, 2006

You can shoot JPEG you can use the 'adjust color balance' in photoshop as well. Doesn't have as much latitude as raw, but if you think you're pretty close then you don't have to use RAW, IMHO

craig · Jul 24, 2006

Understanding colour temp and experimenting is the key. File info on the original file will provide all the beta you need. For example I found that cloudy +2 works best for all my daylight shots. Tungsten 0 and fluorescent 0 work fine on my D200. If I know I will be shooting in a mixed temp environment i.e tungsten/daylight I will do a custom wb and also shoot raw. Raw is a saving grace, but I find it can slow post processing way down.