Custom White Balance

[michael_ziegler2]

If I shoot RAW (only) with my 5D (or any other model) is there any benefit to

doing a Custom white balance adjustment with a gray card in the camera?

 

Will the RAW images when viewed with Microsoft viewer show the color

correction?

[alfaromeo]

1.no, you adjust it in post processing to your taste because you are in RAW.

2.if you do color correction then yes ( didnt quite get your question)

[michael_ziegler2]

Jerry, when I shoot in RAW and then view the shots in Windows Picture Viewer, unprocessed, if the white balance of off, that is what you see. Sometimes looks quite poor (post processed of course). My question is if I do a CWB will that change the way the RAW pix look in the Windows viewer?

Another issue is getting the skin tones correct if the WB needs to be adjusted during processing. Very rarely do I get it right the first time. Anyone with hints for handling this problem?

[michael_ziegler2]

I forgot to add that I do calibrate my monitor.

[lester_wareham]

Michael, you could do, then the RAW "as shot" white balance would be set to the in camera callibration.

 

However most people just take an additional shot of reference card, if I am dealing with sun and deep shade I will often take one with the card in each.

 

This way you can click balance on the reference card in your second shot but still have the camera AWB stored in the "As Shot" field of the RAW file. You can copy that white balance setting to other RAW files in various ways.

 

Rather than a grey card I use the more compact WhiteBal Pocket Kit http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html. It comes with instructions for ACR and some other products.

[dave_trayers]

The short answer is yes, viewing the images in MS Viewer will show with the custom WB. The MS Viewer is just showing the embedded JPG which will have whatever WB the camera is set to, in this case a custom WB.

 

I do this all the time shooting in the theater. Even though I shoot 100% raw files, I use a tungsten WB so that way the extracted JPGs I post on the web look fairly close to the way they should. I still tweak the WB when I convert a raw file, but the low res JPGs look better with the tungsten than with auto WB.