White Balance Question

[Reyna]

Ok, I just recently purchased a WhiBal card from Amazon. I am having a difficult time getting it down right and I was hoping someone could help me.

What I did was take a picture of the card in the same lighting as my subject (my son) then took pictures of him. When I opened in PS to set my levels using the WhiBal card, the color of his skin is wwaaayyy off. I've tried this a few times and every time, the colors of skin is so off! Does anyone have any advice or can tell me how to use it properly.

Oh, and I'm taking the picture of the card with no flash & same settings, as I am the portrait.

Thanks!

 

[KmH]

What white balance did you have the camera set to?

To use the Whibal card properly, you must shoot using the Raw file type your camera uses.

Then in ACR use the White Balance dropper tool, and click o the WB tool on the Whibal card in the photo to set the white balance.

Google - How to use the Whibal card, video.

 

[lorigon27]

yes i agree. shoot in raw and please correct me if im wrong, but having the right exposure matters also?

 

[paigew]

to use the wb card while shooting jpeg take a pic of the card (properly exposed) then go into the camera settings and select 'set custom white balance'. It will set the wb to the last photo you took.

 

[cayto]

See this video, explains everystreps you need

How to Set a Custom White Balance (Canon) - YouTube

 

[TCampbell]

Ok, I just recently purchased a WhiBal card from Amazon. I am having a difficult time getting it down right and I was hoping someone could help me.

What I did was take a picture of the card in the same lighting as my subject (my son) then took pictures of him. When I opened in PS to set my levels using the WhiBal card, the color of his skin is wwaaayyy off. I've tried this a few times and every time, the colors of skin is so off! Does anyone have any advice or can tell me how to use it properly.

Oh, and I'm taking the picture of the card with no flash & same settings, as I am the portrait.

Thanks!

It sounds like you're shooting in RAW and using photoshot to pick a point on the gray-card photo to find the white balance and then copying that white balance to the photo of your son (and there are videos that show how to do this if you are unsure that you're doing it right.)

But it sounds like you _are_ doing it right. Which leads me to my next question:

When's the last time you color-calibrated your monitor?

Years ago I took a photo of a wine rack -- the wood was not stained. I adjusted the image until the image on my screen looked like the color of the wood in real life. After posting it, everyone told me it looked to have an overabundance of "orange" in my image. Then I bought a calibration tool for my monitor (I picked up an X-Rite Colormunki). After the calibration, I noticed the monitor looked a little different (but I didn't think it had changed that much) BUT... then I opened that photo with the wine rack. Boy did it ever look orange!

I realized my monitor had been way out of whack, but I had grown completely used it to - I really wasn't able to detect that the monitor colors were so skewed.

If you're doing everything correctly with the gray card (and based on your brief right-up, it sounds as if you are), the consider that the photo may actually be right... and maybe your monitor is only displaying it wrong.