white-balance - one of many reasons to shoot RAW

[spritestress]

I was out, and had my bopping around camera with me, a Nikon D200. Along my way

I was taking random shots of whatever I passed. I took some snapshots while

walking through a department store, with my camera set to Auto White Balance.

The camera's sensor just wasn't able to decide how to interpret a correct white

balance in the context of the photos.

 

If I had been shooting in JPEG mode, it would have really difficult, if not

nearly impossible to fix the white balance in those photos. Since I was shooting

in RAW mode, I was able to load the photographs into Lightroom, switch in the

Develop Module, and make a single white balance adjustment. The difference

between the before and the after versions of the photos is like night and day.

 

The camera's auto WB set 3350K.

 

In Lightroom I set the WB to 2500K and voila!

 

The resultant colors POP correctly, with the blues, reds, golds, pinks and

whites all revealed in the proper glory.

 

The before and the after versions of the photo follow ...<div></div>

[spritestress]

Here is the uncorrected photo.<div></div>

[garydem]

all that you have said is that your d200's awb cannot correctly set ineterior lighting condition. this is true of a lot of cameras. the answer is to shoot with a flash which may not possible under some circumstances such in the store. or take the time to accurately set the wb manually, which also may not be possible in a store.

it not an argument to shoot raw on a constant basis. since outdoors the camera's awb should be able to cope with the conditions.

[J.W. Wall]

Flash may introduce yet another color temperature that could complicate correction?

[frans_waterlander]

Totally agree on the major advantage of RAW where you set your own WB AFTER you shoot, one of the reasons I shoot RAW exclusively. Your "corrected" image looks way too blue to my liking and I prefer the original shot, but that doesn't take away from the principle discussed here.

[ronald_moravec1]

I too think I might like a warmer version 30% the way from the warm to cold version.

 

Now you can try it.

[jacopo_brembati]

"If I had been shooting in JPEG mode, it would have really difficult, if not nearly impossible to fix the white balance in those photos."<br>

I don't agree.<br>

Your correction is too bluish for my taste.<br>

The following version is, imo, more pleasant.<br>

 

But it is one of the many wb that I can do on jpg.<br>

Jacopo

[spritestress]

People's perceptions of the correct color for that scene are very curious. If you were present in that store, it would be clear that the counter furniture is the cool steel-gray that is the correct color in the white-balance corrected photo. The furniture color in the store is not a pale washed out gold. The tests of this are confirmed by the proper red and blue bottles on top of the cabinet next to the pink boxes, and the true white boxes inside the cabinet to the right. The only yellows in the scene are the gold and amber perfume boxes inside the cabinet, to the left. Trust me on the colors, I walk through that store on a regular basis.

[frans_waterlander]

Sprite,

 

Import the image into Photoshop and measure the "true white boxes inside the cabinet to the right" and you will find that they have a distinctly blue hue to them. Perceptions of colors are curious indeed.

[spritestress]

I think some readers have also missed some of the points. I didn't have half an hour to use a $2,000.00 meter to measure the color temperature of the scene. I also doubt anyone could guess the correct color temperature by hand. As already stated, I wasn't about taking twenty minutes of trial and error, setting various WB values until I got one I liked. I was simply walking along, taking countless quick snapshots that each occupied a few seconds of my time. Fortunately, current generate software makes it possible to make after the fact adjustments.

 

However, one reader did make an astute observation, the white-balance sensors in just about every digital camera available cannot accurately measure white-balance in most situations, indoors or daylight. For example, the Nikon D200 is almost always way too high. I am not convinced such deficiencies in sensor hardware and firmware matters much though, since WB, along with countless other aspects of a photograph, are why great tools like Lightroom enable photographers to fine tune things after the fact.

 

On camera flash, as I was walking through the store would not have been a good option in that context either. It would have created a harsh or garish cast that would have ruined the photograph. It would also have destroyed any sense of the ambient lighting details, of all the tiny spot lights in the cabinetry and so on. A flash would also likely have drawn extremely negative attention from the store's management as well, disrupting their store and my casual stroll through it.

 

Meanwhile, the point here is that I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't shoot RAW almost all the time. I even think that news photographers should shoot raw, believing the "anti-modification" attitude currently taken by many news outlets is too extreme. I am sure there are people who will disagree with my approach, with my opinions, even with my WB adjustments, but that is the power of individuality.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Since we're on this subject, thought I'ld post this incamera manual white balance

technique I stumbled upon shooting under fluorescent tungsten lighting with my Pentax

K100D.

 

I realize it's not ideal for Sprite's quickdraw snapshooting, but I found it interesting in

seeing how you can trick the camera's processing algorithms into getting the desired

result.

 

I sometimes wonder what color palette the camera engineers reference when they measure

for color temperature. It's either too blue or too yellow off of their so called 5000K

reference so you have to wonder what they think 5000K is suppose to look like.<div></div>

[Spearhead]

<i>I even think that news photographers should shoot raw, believing the "anti-modification" attitude currently taken by many news outlets is too extreme.</i><P>There is no anti-modification attitude that means pjs shoot in jpeg. It's always done for expediency. The only reason to switch to RAW would be that news photographs have white balance issues that annoys readers. I haven't seen that as a problem, have you? Maybe you can cite some papers that run jpegs that have WB problems so we can check it out.

[._._z]

"It's always done for expediency."

 

It can be more complicated than that. A very well known photojournalist who used to work for (and now contracts with) the NYTimes only shoots RAW, does PP, and according to his contract has total control over his images before newpapers get to the jpegs he sends them. He says he shoots RAW so as to get the best possible images, but according to people I know in journalism, this has caused some consternation as some of the PP work might be fairly extensive. (I am unclear as to whether the papers get to look at unedited RAW images or now.) But he's got chops and no one' really called him on his PP... yet.

[kari_karhu1]

A biologist, I'd like to put my spoon into this soup.

 

Lamps, films, and sensors have developed for millennia, a century or so, and a couple of

decades, respectively. Our eyes and their predecessor are of the age of millions of years.

And they evolved for seeing in sunlight.

 

A scene like Sprite's is not natural to our eyes. Therefore we either remember the yellow

lighting or know the correct colors. Your choice. I prefer impressionism.

 

The situation is fundamentally different, I think, when we talk about sunlit scenes .

"Correct" the white balance of a sunrise or sunset photo and you may totally destroy it.

Why?

 

While it is true that we automatically correct the hue ON-SCENE, we're unable to adjust it

while watching the photo ON-SCREEN. On-scene, your eyes and brains do the trick -

whether you like or not. This doesn't happen on-screen.

 

According to Wikipedia, photography is drawing with light. Using raw (or jpg) doesn't solve

my problem as a nature photographer. I want to convey the variation of lighting.