White balance help

[kari douma]

I'm not sure if this is a digital camera question, or a digital

darkroom question. I took some pictures of my daughters basketball

game. I am new to digital photography, so I am still trying to

figure everything out. I set a custom white balance at the

beginning of the game. Then half way through I changed to auto

white balance. I like the auto white balance much better. Now, I

am wondering two things. First, why is my custom white balance so

yellow? Second, I can't figure out in photo shop cs how to not get

it so yellow. I have played with the levels and curves, and just

cant get a good combination to get rid of the yellow. Sorry if this

seems so basic, but it is new to me. Here is the 1st picture that I

did the custom white balance on.<div></div>

[kari douma]

Here is the second one. Sorry the last one was too big. How do I size it whith out it getting too grainy for this posting?<div></div>

[mag_miksch]

adjust levels for the blue channel mainly, move the middle slider a little to the left side.

[kari douma]

Thanks,

I did color corect it better by what you said. But, why was my white balance so yellow?<div></div>

[thomas_sullivan]

how did you do the custom white balance? What did you use as the sample image?

[kari douma]

I set the custom white balance in my menu options. I took a picture of a white envelope that I had along with me to set the white balance. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe just a very little bit on the edges of the frame were not the white envelope. Maybe the white envelope didn't fill the entire frame. Would this make a difference? I'm sure it filled at least 90% of the frame. I deleted the picture that I used for my white balance or I'd show you. Would it make a difference that the gym was very yellow anyway? Maybe auto tried to correct for that, but maybe the custom was acurate to what was really there? (It didn't seem that yellow anyway.)

[cwphoto]

"I deleted the picture that I used for my white balance"

 

When you WB the camera properly, the camera does NOT take a picture.

Hope I understand your problem correctly.

[rds801]

I don't shoot with an S3, so I can be wrong on this...but I thought you are suppose to use a gray card to set custom white balance with the S3. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Check the manual and see what it states.

[robert_dee]

All I did was go to levels, select the little highlight eyedropper, and click once on the white line on the floor.

 

 

Maybe what happened to the white balance was you set it where you were seated and not on the court floor. The lighting was probabaly different there making the custom white balance off. That's my guess anyway.

 

 

Good luck

 

 

RDee<div></div>

[kari douma]

My manual says to use a white paper for white balance unless I am using a flash. It recommends a greycard for flash. I was not using flash in this gym. Should I use greycard all the time? Also, I checked, my camera does actually take and record a picture when setting custom white balance.

[rds801]

Continue to use the white card if that is what the manual says. What kind of lighting was in the gym? Looking at the photo, I see hard shadows on the floor. Was this gym evenly lit? I think that if the lighting changes, the color temp will change too(?). Maybe you took your white balance reading in a spot that the lighting might have been a little different?

 

Also maybe someone can help me with something....When using a custom white balance, does your exposures have to be consistent to get the same temp color?

[thomas_sullivan]

I own a Canon 20D.......so it may not behave exactly as your S3 (although, it too does save the "test shot" as an actual image file)...........but.........actually, it says a "more accurate reading can be obtained if using a gray card" in the 20D manual....but I think that would be a very slight difference, not like your pic is.

 

as far as exposure, the actual shot to be used as the WB shot (ie the white card) should have proper exposure to obtain the correct WB data, but subsequent shots would not be any different than normal shooting.

 

It could be the intensity of the light mentioned above....I vaguely remember reading that different wattage tungsten bulbs have different color temps........so thats a possibility

 

another thing........your white envelope........was it really white? some are an off white.......kinda "antique white". Plus, some of the higher grades of paper actually put fibers of different colors in the paper (why.......I have no idea.....guess it feels more high quality, or something), so that could throw things off

 

I think the best thing to do is to set your custom color bal under the exact lights your pics will be done under, and if possible, use a white that is already there.......ie like the white lines on the court...........i'd be hesitent to use clothes white though, they may also have "hidden" dyes and fibers in them also, throwing off the WB.

 

or better yet, shoot in RAW, and fix it in the RAW converter.

[ceterisparibus]

Here's a useful tool for setting White Balance for both JPG and RAW workflows - just a suggestion that might help out in the future. Check out the video "instruction manual" to see how it works - basically a series of small white, gray, and black cards that help you set white & black points as well as overall white balance.<br/><br/>

 

<a href="http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/" target="whibal">WhiBal</a><br/>

<a href="http://rawworkflow.com/WhiBalManual/index.html" target="whibal">WhiBal Video Manual</a><br/>

[steve_justice]

All that a custom white balance does is neutralize any color casts present on your reference target, if you look at a piece of white paper in the shade, it is blueish, when you take a picture of it and set your white balance to this target the camera neutralizes the blue to make it white again thus correcting the color. You should be shootig with an 18% gray card, take the reading in Ap or Tv. The reason to shoot in Aperture Priority is because cameras built in meters will expose any seen to be of 18% gray reflecance. Thats why if you shoot an 18% gray card as your reference, your camera will expose it properly without having to do manual exposure, this makes taking readings quick and easy. White cards are trickier but still work. If you shoot a white card in Ap, you camera will still make an 18% gray frame by underexposing the shot. The problem with white cards is that it's harder to set CWB in manual mode. If you overexpose the white card, there is no detail for the camera to neutralize so you will get results that are way off, same if you undersexpose. To make this easy.

 

Step 1: switch your camera to Aperture Priority mode.

 

Step 2: Shoot a white card or 18% gray card and fill the majority of the frame with this shot (doesn't have to be 100%) make sure there is no glare coming off the card when shooting your target, what your current WB setting is doesn't matter, I usually just leave it on autoWB.

 

Step 3: In the camera menu set the frame that you just took as the custom WB refernce target.

 

Step 4: exit menu, Set your camera's WB to custom

 

Step 5: Start shooting, you can alter exposure, ISO, etc. as long as you're in the same lighting you do not need to take another reading.

 

When you get used to this you can do CWB in less than 10sec. Custom white balance is far superior to any WB mode, but is still not perfect, some color tweaks are still necessary in Photoshop sometimes, but you wont have to dramatically alter color, thus retaining more color information.<div></div>