# Setting white balance



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Thought I would share this approach which I believe is valid. Perhaps many of you are doing it this way already. In most cases, I can't find a spot that has the same RGB values. So I do my best to find one that has these values as close as possible and click on it to get a new balance. I try again and the 2nd time it's always easier. In most cases, after a few tries, I always find a point that's neutral and get the correct white balance. Sometimes it could be time-consuming to find the perfect point, then I just settle for two readings identical, with the 3rd off by 0.1%, close enough.


----------



## Dan Marchant (Aug 8, 2017)

Sorry david I don't understand your post


David PZ Wong said:


> Thought I would share this approach which I believe is valid.


 Any white balance setting is "valid" if it is the one the photographer wants. Many choose a white balance for purely artistic reasons with no attempt at accuracy. 



> In most cases, I can't find a spot that has the same RGB values.


The same RGB values as what?


----------



## Jim Wilde (Aug 8, 2017)

Dan Marchant said:


> The same RGB values as what?



I assume David meant the individual R, G, and B percentages are the same as shown under the Histogram.


----------



## Dan Marchant (Aug 8, 2017)

Jim Wilde said:


> I assume David meant the individual R, G, and B percentages are the same as shown under the Histogram.


Thanks for the reply Jim but that doesn't make that much sense given the RGB numbers under the histogram show the values for whichever pixels your cursor or WB dropper are over.... so they will always "match".


----------



## Jim Wilde (Aug 8, 2017)

Dan Marchant said:


> so they will always "match".



Perhaps we're not understanding each other, so I'll re-phrase. I think David is saying that he looks for a colour, using the eyedropper, whose RGB numbers are the same for each channel, from which he would then set the WB. As he can rarely find one that has exactly the same three values (i.e. R=G=B), he chooses one that's as close to equal as he can find, sets the white balance at that point, then rinses and repeats until he does get a neutral with equal values.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Thought I would share this approach which I believe is valid. Perhaps many of you are doing it this way already. In most cases, I can't find a spot that has the same RGB values. So I do my best to find one that has these values as close as possible and click on it to get a new balance. I try again and the 2nd time it's always easier. In most cases, after a few tries, I always find a point that's neutral and get the correct white balance. Sometimes it could be time-consuming to find the perfect point, then I just settle for two readings identical, with the 3rd off by 0.1%, close enough.



If you want to get the 'colorimetric correct' white balance, you have to click on a point that must be neutral *after* you've set the white balance. For example a point in the neutral grey card you included in the image. The _current_ RGB values of that point are irrelevant. That's the whole reason why you set a white balance in the first place.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Jim above understood me correctly. Of course, if there are no dark or grayish colors in the image at all, I don't think my approach can work. What I am not 100% sure is if the WB I get at the end after clicking a point with equal RGB values is in theory the correct WB.

Did Johan say that you must find a neutral color the first time to get the right WB? What I did was trying until finally a neutral color showed up. Also, I don't know that I must set the WB again after I set it once, if I understood you correctly.


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> What I am not 100% sure is if the WB I get at the end after clicking a point with equal RGB values is in theory the correct WB.



Absolutely not. The white balance eyedropper will _change_ the pixel that you click on to have equal R, G, and B values. When it does that, it also changes the entire image by moving each pixel's RGB values in the same direction and by similar amounts as it had to move the values of the pixel you clicked on. Clicking on a pixel with all RGB values equal will make no change at all. 

This is what Johan was saying. 

If there is no part of the image that _should _be neutral and isn't, there's nowhere to click.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Did Johan say that you must find a neutral color the first time to get the right WB?



No, what I said was that you must find a patch of color that must become neutral *after* you've applied the WB adjustment. That is acommon misunderstanding. People often think that you must find the spot that is closest to neutral, but that is not true. A spot that is close to neutral _right now_, is not necessarily also a spot that must be neutral after correction. Just think about the following example: suppose you photographed a model wearing a light blue shirt. Your current white balance setting is too warm, meaning your image has a yellow color cast. Yellow is the opposite of blue, so the result may be that this blue shirt has become perfectly grey! If you then click on this shirt to set the white balance, nothing will happen. The shirt will remain grey and the white balance will remain wrong.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> That is acommon misunderstanding. People often think that you must find the spot that is closest to neutral, but that is not true.



Absolutely correct but can I invert this to perhaps clarify: What you want to do is find a spot in the photo that in real life (not in the photo) is the closest to neutral, and then picking from that will force it in the image to be neutral, thus restoring the white balance.  As Hal concluded, if there isn't something that should be, you can't do this.

In theory this is exactly correct; in practice it can be tough for three key reasons:  (1) the neutral thing is in a different place in the photo and lit by somewhat different light, (2) the neutral thing is neutral in color but reflecting other colors, e.g. think aluminum or any metal, or (3) the neutral thing is not neutral; the best example of this are white clothes; manufacturers make them slightly blue to fool our eyes to thinking "really white", and if you sample from many white clothes your result ends up too warm because the "white" was too blue.

I think over all the best bet for people is a carefully calibrated monitor, and develop a good eye for what "right" is.  Secondarily, if doing a pile of shots from one general place, go back to the grid mode and look through them on the grid, and see if some stand out as differently colored, and adjust.  Often if people are looking through a gallery of images it is better to have consistency, than jarring the eye as you go from one to the next with a different choice.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Absolutely correct but can I invert this to perhaps clarify: What you want to do is find a spot in the photo that in real life (not in the photo) is the closest to neutral, and then picking from that will force it in the image to be neutral, thus restoring the white balance. As Hal concluded, if there isn't something that should be, you can't do this.



That's the same as what I said, in different words. A spot that is neutral 'in real life', is a spot in the photo that must be neutral _after_ correction. But that means that going over the photo with your cursor, looking for spots with the same R, G and B values is useless, because those are spots that are neutral _before_ correction (think blue shirt in yellow light).


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> That's the same as what I said, in different words. A spot that is neutral 'in real life', is a spot in the photo that must be neutral _after_ correction. But that means that going over the photo with your cursor, looking for spots with the same R, G and B values is useless, because those are spots that are neutral _before_ correction (think blue shirt in yellow light).


As I said, you were absolutely correct.


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Aug 8, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> in practice it can be tough



This is why so many people want there to be some way for Lightroom to tell them where to click.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

Hal P Anderson said:


> This is why so many people want there to be some way for Lightroom to tell them where to click.


In all seriousness though, it is something I wish it had but in a slightly different way.  If I get one image correct, and there's a color in that image that is in others, I wish I could use that.

I.e. a "color match" that spans images, but for sampled points in both images.  Think about someone with an off-grey shirt in a dozen images.  Get one image right, sample the shirt.  now go to either other image, sample the same shirt and say "adjust white balance so this shirt is that color". 

I've tried doing it by hand, e.g. sample the off-neutral object so it becomes neutral. Note WB setting.  Adjust the scene to be proper.  Note WB setting on the sample again, let's say it is off by +600 and -3 from the neutral setting.  Go to another image and sample the off-neutral object, then move them +600 and -3.  it's kind of close, but not very good, and the further off the object is from neutral the less well this works.

But computationally the system could do it easily to calculate the WB of the skewed color.  THere's a PS option for this, but I always struggle to get it to work right, on just the sampled item; plus it's a paint to go to PS for just WB (indeed it is in some ways wrong to do that, as ACR runs first).


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

I am now confused. What I've learned online is that to set the correct white balance, you look for a spot that gives you equal or close to equal RGB readings with the eyedropper and click on it, and that's it. (Of course, that spot may not be gray at all.) So can someone tell me in simple words the steps you take to set the correct WB, if that's possible?

Another related question. What is the clear purpose of setting the WB? If some artificial light casts its light on a subject, making it appear yellow, and the camera records the image faithfully, showing the yellow cast. Wouldn't setting the correct WB actually change how the image truly looked?


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

David, where-ever you got that impression is just plain wrong, or misunderstood.

The purpose of setting the white balance is to give your image the look you want, as the artist.  Notice I did not say to make it look "right".

Key here is perception. When a human looks at a room lit by incandescent light, or another by florescent light, we do not consciously think "this is really yellow" or "this is really blue".  Our minds adjust automatically.

If you shot the same scenes with a camera without some white balance adjustment, however, the resulting images (which we see out of context -- against a computer screen or similar) will look horribly yellow or blue.  They are not so much wrong, as wrong-in-context.  Maybe one day when we are all seeing things with virtual reality devices and are immersed inside the original scene, what we will want is a realistic reproduction.

But for images we use online or in print, and see out of that context, what we want is an image that conveys what we (as the photographer) want people to see.  And for most of us, we want them at least somewhat corrected.  The VERY yellow may remain warm, but we typically want them less yellow.  The VERY blue of florescent or mercury vapor we want pulled back warmer, so they may appear bright and "cool" but not as bad as an uncorrected shot.

How much we correct them is a matter of taste.  Even for automatic white balance in cameras, the higher end cameras let one specify how to correct, e.g. whether to err on the warm or cool side.

But as to the dropper-- you really do have that backwards.  You want something that in real life is neutral (all the same values if you had a light meter at the scene of taking the shot at that time).  If in the image it ALREADY shows the same values, the white balance is in theory the same as the scene. If not, you select it, the program forces the white balance so that object then has equal RGB and looks neutral.  AFTER your choice it looks neutral, not before (if both before and after there is no change).

But don't think of it as a scientific, numeric thing so much as a matter of taste.  It CAN be done numerically, but often the result is not something people like, even if "right".  Find a technique that gives the look you want.  Starting with a calibrated monitor of course.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> I am now confused. What I've learned online is that to set the correct white balance, you look for a spot that gives you equal or close to equal RGB readings with the eyedropper and click on it, and that's it. (Of course, that spot may not be gray at all.)



That last remark shows that you completely misunderstand what RGB-values are. A spot that has equal RGB-values *is grey by definition*.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

1st response to Johan. If equal RGB values have to be grey, then the numbers have to be at a fixed value too? I am thinking 2-2-2, 5-5-5, 9-9-9, etc. can't all be grey. 

Ferguson's response above really helps me – that setting WB is an artistic decision. So it comes down to moving the Temp and Tint sliders? Then the eyedropper is only  good for checking the RGB numbers? (Sorry for these elementary questions.)


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> 1st response to Johan. If equal RGB values have to be grey, then the numbers have to be at a fixed value too? I am thinking 2-2-2, 5-5-5, 9-9-9, etc. can't all be grey.



Of course they can all be grey! Ever heard of shades of grey? And I don't mean the book or the film... The higher the numbers, the lighter the shade of grey.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Ferguson's response above really helps me – that setting WB is an artistic decision. So it comes down to moving the Temp and Tint sliders? Then the eyedropper is only  good for checking the RGB numbers? (Sorry for these elementary questions.)



The eyedropper is good if you need colorimatrically correct white balance. White balance is not _always_ a matter of taste. If you shoot commercially for a clothing catalog for example, then there is no room for taste. Your white balance needs to be exact, otherwise your photos show a different color than the real color of the clothes, and your client is not going to like that!


----------



## Anjikun (Aug 8, 2017)

Hi David,

Don't feel bad about asking elementary questions. A lot of this stuff is very hard for beginners to get. I have had people explaining the whole pixel/resolution thing to me but still I can barely grasp it.

White balance is something I do get though, so I thought I would give you another type of example. I am photographing my art work (including some very colourful works). I want to make sure that the colours are true to what is actually there, and I cannot really control the colour of the light that I am using to light the works when I photograph them.

So I have to include something in the shot that I know is truly neutral. They have grey cards that are manufactured to be truly neutral (no tint either way, everything is equal so they all cancel each other out). So I can put one of these next to the work (and later crop it out, or copy the settings to the other shots done under the same conditions). That way no matter what the tint is of the light on my artworks when I photograph them, there is something in the shot I can click on, because I know it is truly neutral. Then all the colours in the work will adjust themselves around that true neutral, and I know the colours in the photograph will be true to what is actually in the art work.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Johan, you said earlier that "If you want to get the 'colorimetric correct' white balance, you have to click on a point that must be neutral *after* you've set the white balance." I am still not clear about what you mean because it seems that I can read it in different ways. You use the work *after*, but how was the white balance set first? Are you saying you need to include a neutral grey card in the picture first and then use the eyedropper on it? If so, then w/o a grey card, our only choice would be to adjust the Temp and Tint sliders?


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Just posted the questions above before receiving Anjikun's message. When you click on that neutral card included in your shot, do you always get the same RGB values no matter the lighting was like? So if I can't find a spot (in non-studio shots) that's neutral, then the only resort is to play with the Temp and Tint sliders and guess at the correct balance? 

If I do find a spot in my image that give me the same RGB values, then click on it with the eyedropper will get me the correct overall WB – I always thought that was correct and it's what you do with the grey card. After reading all the opinions, I am not even sure about that now.


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> If I do find a spot in my image that give me the same RGB values, then click on it with the eyedropper will get me the correct overall WB – I always thought that was correct and it's what you do with the grey card.



When you need to adjust the white balance, that grey card won't be grey in the image. It will have some colour cast, maybe a little too yellow for instance. If the rest of the image was illuminated by the same light source, the rest of the image will be a little too yellow, too. The image of the card will *not *have equal RGB values. The G and R will be too high, probably. So when you click, LR will reduce the G and R on the card enough to make all the colour numbers equal, and it will reduce the G and R everywhere else in the image so that the colour cast is removed everywhere.

Like we've said half a dozen times, clicking on a spot in the image that already has all RGB values equal *will do absolutely nothing. Nothing! *Try it, and you'll see for yourself.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Johan, you said earlier that "If you want to get the 'colorimetric correct' white balance, you have to click on a point that must be neutral *after* you've set the white balance." I am still not clear about what you mean because it seems that I can read it in different ways. You use the work *after*, but how was the white balance set first? Are you saying you need to include a neutral grey card in the picture first and then use the eyedropper on it? If so, then w/o a grey card, our only choice would be to adjust the Temp and Tint sliders?



Yes. Think about the following situation. You work in a studio, and you need to be sure that your final photo has an exactly correct white balance. No room for personal taste, because the products your are shooting need to have the exact same color in your photos as they have in real life. What you do then is the following: In your first photo you include a special grey card. So you know that this card should be exactly grey in your photo. So you use the white balance eye dropper and click on this card. That will set the white balance to such a value that a card you _know_ is perfectly grey in real life, is now also grey in your photo. Then you use this white balance for the whole series.



David PZ Wong said:


> Just posted the questions above before receiving Anjikun's message. When you click on that neutral card included in your shot, do you always get the same RGB values no matter the lighting was like?



Correct. You don't know the _shade_ of grey (that depends on the exposure), but that is not important. What is important is that you will always get grey; meaning the same values for R, G and B.



David PZ Wong said:


> So if I can't find a spot (in non-studio shots) that's neutral, then the only resort is to play with the Temp and Tint sliders and guess at the correct balance?



Correct again. If you really cannot find any spot in the photo you think should be pretty much neutral grey, then the only thing you can do is use the sliders until you get something you like. In reality, there are more grey spots in a photo than you would think. Concrete or tarmac, for example. The lower part of a cloud. Those are spots you can try and often give you a pretty good starting point. Of course you can always use the eyedropper first, and then change the sliders if you don't like the result.



David PZ Wong said:


> If I do find a spot in my image that give me the same RGB values, then click on it with the eyedropper will get me the correct overall WB



NO! Forget about looking for the same RGB values. That is senseless. I said before; a spot that has the same RGB number *right now*, is not necessarily a spot that *ought to be* grey. I gave you the example of a light blue shirt in yellow light. That shirt is really blue, but because of the yellow light *it looks grey right now*. If you click on that shirt, nothing happens with the current white balance setting, because clicking on a spot will neutralize it, and this spot is already neutral. *You must not click on a spot that is neutral right now, you must click on a spot that should be neutral*.



David PZ Wong said:


> I always thought that was correct and it's what you do with the grey card.



The point is that the grey card is not grey if the white balance of your photo is not correct yet. You click on it to make it grey, by setting the correct white balance.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Thought I would share this approach which I believe is valid. Perhaps many of you are doing it this way already. In most cases, I can't find a spot that has the same RGB values. So I do my best to find one that has these values as close as possible and click on it to get a new balance. I try again and the 2nd time it's always easier. In most cases, after a few tries, I always find a point that's neutral and get the correct white balance. Sometimes it could be time-consuming to find the perfect point, then I just settle for two readings identical, with the 3rd off by 0.1%, close enough.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Just posted the questions above before receiving Anjikun's message. When you click on that neutral card included in your shot, do you always get the same RGB values no matter the lighting was like? So if I can't find a spot (in non-studio shots) that's neutral, then the only resort is to play with the Temp and Tint sliders and guess at the correct balance?
> 
> If I do find a spot in my image that give me the same RGB values, then click on it with the eyedropper will get me the correct overall WB – I always thought that was correct and it's what you do with the grey card. After reading all the opinions, I am not even sure about that now.


(postscript; sorry to pile on, I see Johan also answered and slightly beat me to it; fortunately I think we are in sync.) 

David, you are still reversing the process, sorry.

Let's start with the grey card.  In real life (not in the image), the grey card has R/G/B values that are equal.  When you take the image, the ideosynchrocies of your camera, processing, etc. will change those to some other value -- let's say 50,40,60.  But they SHOULD be grey, i.e. all the same.

If you hover the dropper on them you see 50/40/60, but if you click on it to sample, lightroom will adjust the white balance so THEN they are equal -- maybe 50/50/50.

There is NO WAY to use the tools in lightroom to tell which item in the image SHOULD be grey, you just have to know.  once you know, and select it, Lightroom adjusts the values so they ARE grey.

But to the grey card example: As Anjikan described it is exactly how a lot of studio work is done, but you need to be aware that in real life it hardly ever works quite that way.  The problem is that the position, lighting, reflectivity, etc. of the grey card will be such that it is not, actually, grey as seen from the camera's viewpoint.  So you may try this, and click on it, and while "correct" in a sense, you may get a very distasteful color as a result.  It's a tool -- it is not a solution.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Aug 8, 2017)

Anjikun said:


> So I have to include something in the shot that I know is truly neutral. They have grey cards that are manufactured to be truly neutral (no tint either way, everything is equal so they all cancel each other out). So I can put one of these next to the work (and later crop it out, or copy the settings to the other shots done under the same conditions).


Off topic alert: 

If you want to be really precise, you can also include in there a MacBeth Color Chart.  With this, and some (free) software, you can produce a custom camera profile.  This is a way to adjust for light spectra differences and camera sensor differences and get yet more precise color.  It is not about white balance (you need that separately).  It is more about how saturated each color is -- with some sensors, or some lighting, you may find blue a bit over-saturated, or red under-saturated (or whatever).  What a camera profile made in this way does is apply a shift to each of the colors in the chart, separately, to better align them.  I use a Color Checker Passport (about $90 US) but there are other choices as well.  It is a very fine tune adjustment, and some people will say it is not even noticeable, but if you are really picky about color something to look at.

We now return control to your regularly scheduled topic....


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

Maybe a real life example makes it easier to understand. Here's a photo of a card used to make color profiles. The top row are different shades of grey. As you can see however, the camera has created a blue color cast. The top row isn't neutral grey. We know the patches *should* be grey, but they aren't. And if you move the cursor over these patches, the RGB values you'll see will *not* be the same!






I click with the WB eyedropper on one of the top row patches, it doesn't really matter which one. Lightroom now sets a white balance that makes those patches exactly neutral.


----------



## clee01l (Aug 8, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Of course they can all be grey! Ever heard of shades of grey? And I don't mean the book or the film... The higher the numbers, the lighter the shade of grey.


Fifty Shades of Grey - EL James


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 8, 2017)

clee01l said:


> Fifty Shades of Grey - EL James



Yes, of course I was referring to that...


----------



## clee01l (Aug 8, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Yes, of course I was referring to that...


I could not resist.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

With my kind of shooting, it wouldn't be practical to use the grey card or the MacBeth chart. I really appreciate the overwhelming response from all of you. What I must remember is that I should look for a possible a good neutral grey (no matter what the RGB readings are) and click on it with the eyedropper to set the color balance, and *not* use the eyedropper to scan the image to find any spot with equal RGB values to click on. I've been doing the reverse.

By the way, using the somewhat haphazard approach I described at the beginning, I actually in each case ended up with improvement over the original image. Oh well, now it's back to the drawing board.


----------



## Anjikun (Aug 9, 2017)

Note that it doesn't have to be grey, because often in the real world we don't know if stuff we think of as grey is warm grey or cool grey. It could also be something that you know (or suspect) is actually pure white, or close to it. And of course because of the type of shooting you are doing it doesn't matter if the colours are true, so try clicking on a few places until you find something you like.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 9, 2017)

Thanks, Anjikun. I was reading Victoria Bampton's LR Missing FAQ on White Balance. And she did recommend choosing something light neutral and bright. Anyway, it turned out that WB is taken care of by the camera when you shoot JPEGs and I shoot JPEGs with my iPhone. So perhaps my WB is fine -- I only need to play with all the other editing tools to get the looks I want.

david-pz-wong.format.com


----------



## prbimages (Aug 9, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Anyway, it turned out that WB is taken care of by the camera when you shoot JPEGs and I shoot JPEGs with my iPhone. So perhaps my WB is fine ...


The camera only "takes care" of the white balance in the sense that it makes a _guess _at what the white balance should be. And as a _guess_, it may be good, or it may be very wrong, depending on the lighting conditions and the scene which is being recorded (and also on the quality of the engineers who designed the camera and its processing software). This _guessed white balance_ is then used to create your JPG. Once the JPG file has been created, though, the white balance cannot be changed in that image; the numbers have been "baked in". This is one very good reason why it is generally better to use take RAW images instead of JPG!


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Aug 9, 2017)

Depending on which iPhone you have, it may or may not be possible to shoot in raw. My iPhone 6 cannot shoot raw; I would have to upgrade to at least an iPhone 6s. Mind you: Even though the WB was 'baked in' in case of jpeg, it doesn't mean you can't use those sliders anymore to make the image a little warmer if you think it's too blue. The WB sliders still work, just not as effectively as in raw.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 9, 2017)

Thanks, prbimages & Johan. I've learned so much. I have iPhone 6s. I believe that it takes care of sharpening too, so I do not selectively sharpen more than 15% in LR. Getting into RAW will be so much more learning and work. I am happy with JPEGS. After all the learning, I have found that as long as the image looks good on my calibrated monitor, I can safely skip soft-proofing and send it to my lab, ProDPI, and get beautiful prints back. Using all the pixels at 300 ppi would deliver an image size 10.08"x13.44". I shrink it down to 9x12 and have it printed on 11x14 paper. This is all conveniently done through the Print module. I use Print to File because doing it through Export, I found no easy way of specifying my custom cell size with specific borders. What got me started with this thread was just that the colors in a couple of prints looked too warm. So I played with WB. Luckily I found out on this forum that I had been setting WB the wrong way. Now my task is to review and correct scores of images I had changed WB on.

David PZ Wong/Fine Art iPhone Photography - About


----------



## LRList001 (Aug 14, 2017)

David PZ Wong said:


> Thanks, Anjikun. I was reading Victoria Bampton's LR Missing FAQ on White Balance. And she did recommend choosing something light neutral and bright. Anyway, it turned out that WB is taken care of by the camera when you shoot JPEGs and I shoot JPEGs with my iPhone. So perhaps my WB is fine -- I only need to play with all the other editing tools to get the looks I want.
> 
> david-pz-wong.format.com



David, there is another 'trick' going on too, inside most cameras with automatic exposure.  The assumption is that the world is 18% grey (in a grey scale).  Almost all built-in light meters work on this assumption.  The odd thing is, is that it is much more true than you would expect, but it is by no means always true.  Understanding when the light meter is being fooled by a scene that isn't an average 18% grey will help improve your photography.  The latest built-in meters have all sorts of algorithms for trying to work out when the scene isn't complying with the 18% grey rule, but at heart they start off with that assumption.


----------



## David PZ (Aug 17, 2017)

Thanks, LRList001. I do only iPhone photography, so I let the camera do everything for me.
http://david-pz-wong.format.com
David PZ Wong/Fine Art iPhone Photography - About


----------



## jjlad (Nov 1, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Off topic alert:
> 
> If you want to be really precise, you can also include in there a MacBeth Color Chart.  With this, and some (free) software, you can produce a custom camera profile.  This is a way to adjust for light spectra differences and camera sensor differences and get yet more precise color.  It is not about white balance (you need that separately).  It is more about how saturated each color is -- with some sensors, or some lighting, you may find blue a bit over-saturated, or red under-saturated (or whatever).  What a camera profile made in this way does is apply a shift to each of the colors in the chart, separately, to better align them.  I use a Color Checker Passport (about $90 US) but there are other choices as well.  It is a very fine tune adjustment, and some people will say it is not even noticeable, but if you are really picky about color something to look at.
> 
> We now return control to your regularly scheduled topic....



Just reading this thread and was interesting to see the above. I have  a color checker I picked up at a swap meet. Just one panel roughly 8.4"x5.9" with 24 numbered color swatches set into a rigid grid. It looks exactly like the photo above. On the back is a chart with matching numbers which shows the numeric color values for each swatch ...so the red color in column 3, row 2 reads R=222, G=91, B=125.
Visually it looks like the color checker in the corrected photo Johan posted. You mention that with a MacBeth Color Chart and some free software you can produce a custom camera profile. I'm thinking perhaps this card I have would work with that software and if so ...can you advise where to get that software? The card only cost me $5.00 so no biggie if I can't use it but it seems very well made and sturdy and I'd like to give it a try if at all possible. I realize I can just shoot it then pick a grey swatch with the white balance eyedropper but I have grey cards for that and just wonder if that software would open up doing camea calibration etc.
Thanks in advance.


----------



## Linwood Ferguson (Nov 1, 2017)

jjlad said:


> Just reading this thread and was interesting to see the above. I have  a color checker I picked up at a swap meet. Just one panel roughly 8.4"x5.9" with 24 numbered color swatches set into a rigid grid. It looks exactly like the photo above. On the back is a chart with matching numbers which shows the numeric color values for each swatch ...so the red color in column 3, row 2 reads R=222, G=91, B=125.
> Visually it looks like the color checker in the corrected photo Johan posted. You mention that with a MacBeth Color Chart and some free software you can produce a custom camera profile. I'm thinking perhaps this card I have would work with that software and if so ...can you advise where to get that software? The card only cost me $5.00 so no biggie if I can't use it but it seems very well made and sturdy and I'd like to give it a try if at all possible. I realize I can just shoot it then pick a grey swatch with the white balance eyedropper but I have grey cards for that and just wonder if that software would open up doing camea calibration etc.
> Thanks in advance.


The software that's purely free is the Adobe DNG Profile Editor here. 

The Color Checker Passport software is available on their site for download but should be used, I think, only with their device (will it work with others properly, not sure, but it seems kind of a cheat to use it).


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 1, 2017)

Ferguson said:


> Off topic alert:
> 
> If you want to be really precise, you can also include in there a MacBeth Color Chart.  With this, and some (free) software, you can produce a custom camera profile.  This is a way to adjust for light spectra differences and camera sensor differences and get yet more precise color.  It is not about white balance (you need that separately).  It is more about how saturated each color is -- with some sensors, or some lighting, you may find blue a bit over-saturated, or red under-saturated (or whatever).  What a camera profile made in this way does is apply a shift to each of the colors in the chart, separately, to better align them.  I use a Color Checker Passport (about $90 US) but there are other choices as well.  It is a very fine tune adjustment, and some people will say it is not even noticeable, but if you are really picky about color something to look at.
> 
> We now return control to your regularly scheduled topic....


What Linwood has highlighted is a topic that is not well known among photographers - the role of DNG profiles.
As Linwood has explained a good DNG profile is a way of getting much more accurate colour fidelity.
Nearly all camera sensors (there are one or two exceptions) use a Bayer array (one can easily use Google to find a pictorial representation of a Bayer array). The key issue with respect to colour is that the three primary colours in the array are not equally represented. Rather 50% is green and 25% respectively are blue and red. One of the consequences is that colours that require a lot of green are generally more accurate than those that are composed primarily of the other primary colours.
As Linwood has already alluded to this can mean certain colours are not as saturated as they should be but also (and more importantly) of the wrong hue altogether.

This has important consequences in post-production when colour shifts need correcting. White balance is one form of colour shift. If the relationship between colours is not accurate and consistent (likely, if one is NOT using a good DNG profile for a particular camera), then when one uses the dropper in Lightroom to correct for white balance then, yes, Lightroom will correct all those hues that should be neutral but those colours that are not neutral may still not look correct.

A DNG profile (which is individualised for a particular individual camera and its sensor) corrects the raw file colour data at the time that a raw converter demosaics that raw data to produce RGB data for that raw file. Given how ridiculously simple an accurate DNG profile is to produce it is a crime that even most professional photographers have never even heard of the concept.
From personal experience the accuracy of colour, particularly reds, oranges, and blues, is much enhanced with DNG profiles. Every camera I use has a custom-made DNG profile and it simplifies considerably those aspects of post-production that involve manipulating colour.

Simply put, DNG profiles give more vibrant colour as well as more accurate colour.
When one corrects white balance one is not then left with an annoying and often difficult to correct colour cast affecting  non-neutral colours.

Tony Jay


----------



## Eric Bowles (Nov 2, 2017)

Good discussion.

There are different situations that call for different types of white balance.  

For studio work, product photogrpahy, and many other indoor situations, you want to have balanced light temperature and a neutral white balance.

On the other hand, for landscapes you would almost never want a neutral white balance because it neutralizes the warm light of the golden hours, the cool blue light of shadows or the blue hour, and the green hues of a forest scene.  In addition, you might selectively choose different white balance values in the same photo.

For non-neutral white balance, one approach is to treat white balance as an artistic choice and move the slliders to taste.  Another is to find a neutral value, then change the color temperature a predetermined amount to make it warmer or cooler.  Presets could be useful, but the starting point for an image is usually not a constant, so it may not be appropriate.

I'm sure others here have some suggestions.


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 3, 2017)

Eric Bowles said:


> Good discussion.
> 
> There are different situations that call for different types of white balance.
> 
> ...


I largely agree with this commentary, but, a couple of points need expansion:
I shoot a lot in forests - particularly on overcast days - and for that reason overall white balance is often a bit cool. I confess to never having seen an image shot in a forest having an overall green hue as far as white balance is concerned!
 Normally, I would go for a neutral white balance or one that is slightly cool depending on the mood of the image. Occasionally, if shooting in forests with low warm directional sunlight I will go with a much warmer white balance, however, in my neck of the woods (pardon the pun!) it is rare to get that and shooting with overhead sunlight rarely produces a worthwhile shot in a rainforest setting...

With respect to white balance in general landscape type shots, I also sometimes go for a duotone look where I slightly bias the highlights to a warmer colour balance while doing the opposite with the shadows. Very interesting results are possible using this technique. I have applied this technique to some images of the Namib Desert as well as Fraser Island (off the Queensland east coast) with great effect!

Whatever artistic approach is taken with colour and white balance it is useful to start with a neutral image as far as white balance is concerned - even those warm sunset shots!
Starting with a neutral image keeps one's feet firmly on the ground even if fairly radical adjustments are anticipated!
I also leave those kind of artistic colour adjustments until well after all the tonal adjustments as well as sharpening and noise reduction.
Obviously, as far as Lightroom (and other parametric image editors) is concerned, the order of editing workflow is much less important as far as ultimate image quality is concerned, however, for the reasons mentioned above, it can still make a difference even if those differences are purely subjective and on an aesthetic level rather than from an IQ (Image Quality) perspective.

Tony Jay


----------



## tspear (Nov 3, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> I largely agree with this commentary, but, a couple of points need expansion:
> I shoot a lot in forests - particularly on overcast days - and for that reason overall white balance is often a bit cool. I confess to never having seen an image shot in a forest having an overall green hue as far as white balance is concerned!
> Normally, I would go for a neutral white balance or one that is slightly cool depending on the mood of the image. Occasionally, if shooting in forests with low warm directional sunlight I will go with a much warmer white balance, however, in my neck of the woods (pardon the pun!) it is rare to get that and shooting with overhead sunlight rarely produces a worthwhile shot in a rainforest setting...
> 
> ...



Tony,

Interesting, I have a lot to learn.
But one question I have specific to Lr. You said the order is not important. I thought Lr applies the edits in a specific order, as such if you do your editing out of order you may have more rework.
Is this correct?


Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk


----------



## Hal P Anderson (Nov 3, 2017)

Edit order isn't important in the sense that you'll see the same results no matter what order you do the edits in. Life may be easier for you if you do the edits in the recommended order, though.


----------



## Eric Bowles (Nov 3, 2017)

Hal P Anderson said:


> Edit order isn't important in the sense that you'll see the same results no matter what order you do the edits in. Life may be easier for you if you do the edits in the recommended order, though.



While edit order is not important, your choice of tools and how you edit may matter.  For example, if you adjust contrast it could cause you to blow highlights and need a highlight adjustment, but you could accomplish the same objective with different edits that don't involve contrast.  Different images call for different adjustments.


----------



## Eric Bowles (Nov 3, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> I largely agree with this commentary, but, a couple of points need expansion:
> I shoot a lot in forests - particularly on overcast days - and for that reason overall white balance is often a bit cool. I confess to never having seen an image shot in a forest having an overall green hue as far as white balance is concerned!
> Normally, I would go for a neutral white balance or one that is slightly cool depending on the mood of the image. Occasionally, if shooting in forests with low warm directional sunlight I will go with a much warmer white balance, however, in my neck of the woods (pardon the pun!) it is rare to get that and shooting with overhead sunlight rarely produces a worthwhile shot in a rainforest setting...
> 
> ...



As far as forests are concerned, WB is making an attempt to neutralize more than just warm and cool temps.  It also neutralizes tint.  If you have a blue tent in a shadow from reflected light of a blue sky, it neutralizes that by making it warmer.  If you have a green tint in a forest scene from a lush green forest, a white balance adjustment can reduce or neutralize that tint.  That might be okay - or it might make a lush scene desaturated and flat.  

I do a lot of photography in the Smokies, and in the spring the rocks and streams pick up reflected light off green foliage.  You have to watch to avoid a neutral WB because when you remove the green reflections, the scene is dull and lacks color.  Tony's technique of duotoning - in this case making the water and rocks neutral but retaining the saturated color of the foliage - makes a more interesting image.

Like Tony, I typically start with a known WB.  In my case it's usually a daylight or sunny daylight WB in the 5200 to 5500 range.  That's a good all purpose starting point for the kind of light I have with landscapes.


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 3, 2017)

tspear said:


> Tony,
> 
> Interesting, I have a lot to learn.
> But one question I have specific to Lr. You said the order is not important. I thought Lr applies the edits in a specific order, as such if you do your editing out of order you may have more rework.
> ...


I said that the order that you and I apply edits may not be important, so, if you and I apply the exact same edits to an identical image but each in a different order, Lightroom will ensure that the results will be identical.
Lightroom applies the edits in a specific order to maximise image quality.

Tony Jay


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 3, 2017)

Eric Bowles said:


> As far as forests are concerned, WB is making an attempt to neutralize more than just warm and cool temps.  It also neutralizes tint.  If you have a blue tent in a shadow from reflected light of a blue sky, it neutralizes that by making it warmer.  If you have a green tint in a forest scene from a lush green forest, a white balance adjustment can reduce or neutralize that tint.  That might be okay - or it might make a lush scene desaturated and flat.
> 
> I do a lot of photography in the Smokies, and in the spring the rocks and streams pick up reflected light off green foliage.  You have to watch to avoid a neutral WB because when you remove the green reflections, the scene is dull and lacks color.  Tony's technique of duotoning - in this case making the water and rocks neutral but retaining the saturated color of the foliage - makes a more interesting image.
> 
> Like Tony, I typically start with a known WB.  In my case it's usually a daylight or sunny daylight WB in the 5200 to 5500 range.  That's a good all purpose starting point for the kind of light I have with landscapes.


For those that don't know, tint, and what we call white balance, are intimately related.
The "White balance" slider, as defined in Lightroom, alters colour along an axis of blue-yellow hues.
The "Tint" slider, alters colour along an axis of green-magenta hues.
These two axes are at right angles to each other.
Theoretically, where the two axes intersect a perfectly neutral tone will be found.
The dropper tool will adjust hues along both axes as appropriate.
However, the sliders, for obvious reasons, will only alter hues along a single axis as defined above.

A lot of Lightroom users completely ignore the "Tint" slider - after all the slider immediately above is actually called "White balance"!
However, even if one can perfectly manipulate the "White balance" slider ignoring the "Tint" slider means that a true neutral white balance may be unattainable.

Tony Jay


----------



## David PZ (Aug 8, 2017)

Thought I would share this approach which I believe is valid. Perhaps many of you are doing it this way already. In most cases, I can't find a spot that has the same RGB values. So I do my best to find one that has these values as close as possible and click on it to get a new balance. I try again and the 2nd time it's always easier. In most cases, after a few tries, I always find a point that's neutral and get the correct white balance. Sometimes it could be time-consuming to find the perfect point, then I just settle for two readings identical, with the 3rd off by 0.1%, close enough.


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Nov 4, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> For those that don't know, tint, and what we call white balance, are intimately related.
> The "White balance" slider, as defined in Lightroom, alters colour along an axis of blue-yellow hues.
> The "Tint" slider, alters colour along an axis of green-magenta hues.
> These two axes are at right angles to each other.
> ...



Actually, the 'White Balance' is both sliders together, for the reason you mentioned. You cannot obtain perfectly neutral colors with only one slider. You need both. The yellow/blue slider is called 'Temperature'.


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 4, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Actually, the 'White Balance' is both sliders together, for the reason you mentioned. You cannot obtain perfectly neutral colors with only one slider. You need both. The yellow/blue slider is called 'Temperature'.


that was the point I was trying to make...


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Nov 4, 2017)

Tony Jay said:


> that was the point I was trying to make...



I know, but by saying that the top slider is called 'White Balance', you possibly _created_ some confusion. That slider is called 'Temperature'.


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 4, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I know, but by saying that the top slider is called 'White Balance', you possibly _created_ some confusion. That slider is called 'Temperature'.


Fair comment...


----------



## LRList001 (Nov 4, 2017)

tspear said:


> Tony,
> 
> Interesting, I have a lot to learn.
> But one question I have specific to Lr. You said the order is not important. I thought Lr applies the edits in a specific order, as such if you do your editing out of order you may have more rework.
> ...


This is ambiguous.  Excluding local adjustments, LR maintains a 'current command set', it matters not a jot what order you do your edits in, LR simply updates its current command set.  LR then applies that command set using its own (internal) order.  From LR's perspective your edit order does not matter, nor does it matter how many times you change a setting, or what order you put your edits in or even if you come back and tweak a setting a second time with other edits in-between (as there is only one current command set); from your perspective you might be making life more difficult.

Local adjustments probably behave differently and the order might matter, I have never experimented seriously.


----------



## Tony Jay (Nov 4, 2017)

LRList001 said:


> This is ambiguous.  LR maintains a 'current command set', it matters not a jot what order you do your edits in, LR simply updates its current command set.  LR then applies that command set using its own (internal) order.  From LR's perspective your edit order does not matter, nor does it matter how many times you change a setting, or what order you put your edits in or even if you come back and tweak a setting a second time with other edits in-between (as there is only one current command set); from your perspective you might be making life more difficult.


Correct!

Tony Jay


----------



## tspear (Nov 5, 2017)

LRList001 said:


> This is ambiguous.  Excluding local adjustments, LR maintains a 'current command set', it matters not a jot what order you do your edits in, LR simply updates its current command set.  LR then applies that command set using its own (internal) order.  From LR's perspective your edit order does not matter, nor does it matter how many times you change a setting, or what order you put your edits in or even if you come back and tweak a setting a second time with other edits in-between (as there is only one current command set); from your perspective you might be making life more difficult.
> 
> Local adjustments probably behave differently and the order might matter, I have never experimented seriously.


How is it ambiguous?
If you the tone curve, then the black amd whites, then the exposure, you likely will have to rework the black and whites followed by the tone curve.
As you re-stated Lr does not care.

Tim

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk


----------



## LRList001 (Nov 5, 2017)

tspear said:


> How is it ambiguous?
> If you the tone curve, then the black amd whites, then the exposure, you likely will have to rework the black and whites followed by the tone curve.
> As you re-stated Lr does not care.
> 
> ...



It is ambiguous because there are two perspectives to the answer, I separated the two with a semicolon in my reply as I covered both (as did you).

Is there an answer re local adjustments (and grads)?


----------



## tspear (Nov 5, 2017)

LRList001 said:


> It is ambiguous because there are two perspectives to the answer, I separated the two with a semicolon in my reply as I covered both (as did you).
> 
> Is there an answer re local adjustments (and grads)?


My test was using white adjustments and exposure. Adobe seems to processes everything in the same order. Local is just applied locally (could not resist). 

Tim


----------



## LRList001 (Nov 7, 2017)

tspear said:


> My test was using white adjustments and exposure. Adobe seems to processes everything in the same order. Local is just applied locally (could not resist).
> 
> Tim



That does not answer the question about local adjustments (and I have not experimented).  There are two possible algorithms I'll call them A and B.
Algorithm A - steps are not constrained by the output range except on display.
Algorithm B - steps are constrained by the allowed range

So, lets set the allowed range to 0..255.  Lets start at 100, luminance say.
Lets create four local adjustments that happen to cover that pixel.  These four are Step S1 - add 100; S2 add 100, S3 subtract 100, S4 subtract 100.

Algorithm A:  S1, 100+100=200 (display 200), S2 200+100=300 (internal is 300, display is 255), S3 300-100=200 (display 200), S4 200-100=100 (display 100)
Algorithm B:  S1, 100+100=200 (display 200), S2 200+100=255 (limit reached, display 255 too), S3 255-100=155 (display 155), S4 155-100=55 (display 55).

Now, lets do it in this order, S1, S3, S2, S4.  Ie change the order the overlays are applied.
Both algorithms remain in range, the display is 100, 200, 100, 200, 100.
You will notice that if LR uses algorithm A, then the order does not matter, if it uses algorithm B, then the order does matter.

I don't know which of the two LR uses.


----------



## msmack (Nov 23, 2017)

Here are examples

On the first picture I think the tree trunk has a yellow cast to it.  It should be white. White is a neutral color unless it has a cast to it.  I am not clicking on a white in the image, I am clicking on what should be white.
Image 2 is after I have clicked on the tree trunk in image 1.  The numbers are much closer together.  If I want I can then go to the sliders and adjust the blue and check the WB again.  In actuallity the numbers should all be the same, this one needs a tad more blue to make totally neutral, which I can adjust with the  sliders.
In addition if you go to Custom on the same row as the eyedropper, if your images are RAW you can go to Auto.  90% of the time it will fix your white balance.


----------

