Bri at the ISU fountain

JulieLawsonPhotography

Bri and I are participants in a local photo club with other photographers/hobbyiest and last night we practiced using a gray card to get a proper white balance. Here are some of my shots. I want to go back there and bring both girls. The fountain is wonderful and I think Emmy would enjoy it.
1

2

3

4

5
using a gray scale card....not sure if i did that right, lol (let me know)

Sam

Julie,

It seems, at least on my monitor, that your white balance is off.

Here is your #5 after I adjusted wb, slight levels, and lowered magenta a little.

How does this look on your monitor?

Sam

JulieLawsonPhotography

looks a little better. I am going to have to practice more I think, The card actually was black and that one end I believe.

Mnemosyne

Holy crap. I LOVE that fountain. I remember playing it back in the day when I went to University School (what is now an odd office building with lockers for little kids, at 8th and Cherry I believe).

We would all walk down to the fountain after school, and play in it till we got tired or someone told us to leave (but who would tell kids to stop having fun?). Annoyed the hell out of my parents because after that I would go to their offices and wait for them to take me home

JulieLawsonPhotography

Mnemosyne wrote:

Holy crap. I LOVE that fountain. I remember playing it back in the day when I went to University School (what is now an odd office building with lockers for little kids, at 8th and Cherry I believe).

We would all walk down to the fountain after school, and play in it till we got tired or someone told us to leave (but who would tell kids to stop having fun?). Annoyed the hell out of my parents because after that I would go to their offices and wait for them to take me home

I am planning on taking my 3 1/2 year old here to see what she thinks of it. I'm sure she'll be leaving wet too.

jeffreaux2

JUlie,

I think they look pretty close in the first three. The others....IDK....and I am not sold on Sam's fix either as it looks redder than the original to me. Has she a slight sunburn by chance. If so, then they may never look exactly right. Anyway...A so called perfect WB from a grey...or white for that matter...card may not always be what looks best. It is a good starting point, but I usually stray from that perfectness to a place in the temperature spectrum that suits my eye. Your eyes and tastes in photography will be as much help as a device on getting a good solid WB.

Just my $.02...don't spent it all at one place!:D

1pocket

jeffreaux2 wrote:

JUlie,

I think they look pretty close in the first three. The others....IDK....and I am not sold on Sam's fix either as it looks redder than the original to me. Has she a slight sunburn by chance. If so, then they may never look exactly right. Anyway...A so called perfect WB from a grey...or white for that matter...card may not always be what looks best. It is a good starting point, but I usually stray from that perfectness to a place in the temperature spectrum that suits my eye. Your eyes and tastes in photography will be as much help as a device on getting a good solid WB.

Just my $.02...don't spent it all at one place!:D

....IF your monitor calibration is pretty good

JulieLawsonPhotography

1pocket wrote:

....IF your monitor calibration is pretty good

My monitor is not calibrated that I know of anyway. I had a guy at the camera store tell me that I could use the palm of my hand as the 18% gray. I went looking for a gray card as the one I used last night was another photographers. So, skeptical, I tried it tonight......NO that didn't work for me. Turned my picture blue. lol

jeffreaux2

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

My monitor is not calibrated that I know of anyway. I had a guy at the camera store tell me that I could use the palm of my hand as the 18% gray. I went looking for a gray card as the one I used last night was another photographers. So, skeptical, I tried it tonight......NO that didn't work for me. Turned my picture blue. lol

You need to get yourself a "Little Huey" or something similar to calibrate. There isn't much point in editing digital photos if you don't know exactly what they look like...and more importantly what you are making them look like. You can get one of the entry level usb calibration devices for $100 or so. It will be well worth the expense...and will give you some confidence in your processing treatments.

Sam

OK,

My monitor is calibrated, and my prints match my monitor, but I am still working on getting skin tones right.

The suposed fix I posted doen't look right ether.

I can't seem to get a good wb, or black point using the card????

It seems better to me if I just do it by eyeball. I have noticed a difference between what I get on my screen, and what it looks like when I upload to Smugmug?

Oh well here is a tweeked by eye version.

Sam

jeffreaux2

Sam you second try looks much improved....

heres my try

JulieLawsonPhotography

Sam wrote:

OK,

My monitor is calibrated, and my prints match my monitor, but I am still working on getting skin tones right.

The suposed fix I posted doen't look right ether.

I can't seem to get a good wb, or black point using the card????

It seems better to me if I just do it by eyeball. I have noticed a difference between what I get on my screen, and what it looks like when I upload to Smugmug?

Oh well here is a tweeked by eye version.

Sam

That does look much better, Sam. I'm trying to get this figured out. I took some tonight and some just still look yellowish. I was taking pictures of flowers in the shade.

JulieLawsonPhotography

jeffreaux2 wrote:

Sam you second try looks much improved....

heres my try

Yours looks good too. Since my daughter doesn't come on here I can say the #1 she is tan, and #2, her make-up was a little darker than normal. Apparently she put on a bronzer last night.? I hate (love it but) learning new things. I get so frustrated when I don't "get" it right away.

Sam

I think without a doubt skin tones are the hardest to get right. It does seem that camera's, especially when using flash render skin tones too red / magenta.

I seem to be able to get everything closer when converting from RAW.

Sam

Scott_Quier

Julie, I have a few thoughts in no particular order

• You will soon be in serious trouble - your daughter is precious today but I see her becoming quite beautiful in the not so distant future.
• There was a review/test thread of custom white balance tools here in DGrin not so long ago. I think PathFinder was a major player in that. This thread might be a good place to start your search for a tool.
• I use and am quite happy with the WhiBal card (link)
• In your #5 above, I do believe that the sample labeled 19 should be black. Since it's not black in your photo, I have to wonder how you got it gray while, at the same time, not missing the expsoure on your daughter's face. Could it be that the card is somewhat reflective and that it wasn't held at the proper angle to the camera? If so, that would account for the problems people are having trying to use that card as a reference.

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

My monitor is not calibrated that I know of anyway. I had a guy at the camera store tell me that I could use the palm of my hand as the 18% gray. I went looking for a gray card as the one I used last night was another photographers. So, skeptical, I tried it tonight......NO that didn't work for me. Turned my picture blue. lol

I think what the photo store clerk was attempting to communicate is that you can use the palm of your hand to estimate exposure (that's where the 18% comes in). This is done by metering/shooting the palm of your hand in the same light as a known reference (an 18% gray card for example) and comparing the differences. Than, in the future, you can use the palm of your hand to estimate the required expsure settings in just about any situation.

However, because the palm of your hand is NOT color neutral, you can't use it as a gray reference. Your hand is warmer than neutral gray so using your palm as reference has got to cause a cooling of your photo - as you saw.

JulieLawsonPhotography

Scott_Quier wrote:

Julie, I have a few thoughts in no particular order

• You will soon be in serious trouble - your daughter is precious today but I see her becoming quite beautiful in the not so distant future.
• There was a review/test thread of custom white balance tools here in DGrin not so long ago. I think PathFinder was a major player in that. This thread might be a good place to start your search for a tool.
• I use and am quite happy with the WhiBal card (link)
• In your #5 above, I do believe that the sample labeled 19 should be black. Since it's not black in your photo, I have to wonder how you got it gray while, at the same time, not missing the expsoure on your daughter's face. Could it be that the card is somewhat reflective and that it wasn't held at the proper angle to the camera? If so, that would account for the problems people are having trying to use that card as a reference.

I think what the photo store clerk was attempting to communicate is that you can use the palm of your hand to estimate exposure (that's where the 18% comes in). This is done by metering/shooting the palm of your hand in the same light as a known reference (an 18% gray card for example) and comparing the differences. Than, in the future, you can use the palm of your hand to estimate the required expsure settings in just about any situation.

However, because the palm of your hand is NOT color neutral, you can't use it as a gray reference. Your hand is warmer than neutral gray so using your palm as reference has got to cause a cooling of your photo - as you saw.

I think my daughter is beautiful as well:D of course, I'm biased. On the picture holding the scale, that is why I included it. I was actually with Pathfinder when I took this photo and it's his grayscale card. I was hoping to show him what happened. It is off, because that one end should be black. He was showing the people that attended about white balance and I wanted to show the people on DGRIN and him my results for cc. This board is so very helpful.

As I was finishing editing the whole set of pictures last night, I noticed the histogram peaking right in the middle on some, so I am assuming that I got the exposure and rgb levels right, right? It's funny, you master one area, then WB comes up and throws you for a loop.

Scott_Quier

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

As I was finishing editing the whole set of pictures last night, I noticed the histogram peaking right in the middle on some, so I am assuming that I got the exposure and rgb levels right, right? It's funny, you master one area, then WB comes up and throws you for a loop.

Not necessarily. All that says is that the luminosity with the highest pixel count was in the middle of all the luminosities in the image.

When you are shooting, for example, someone in a white shirt (and the white shirt comprises a significant portion of the image), there will (should) be a peak at the right end of the histogram. If you also include his black pants (and his black pants also comprise significant portion of the image), then there will be another peak at the left end of the histogram.

Travis

I agree with Scott on the WhiBAl card. I have the small 3 1/2" card that I can slide into my pocket and pull out whenever conditions change like on a bright sunny day and then storm clouds roll in. It also only has 3 shades of gray (18%, black, and white) simplifying the process.

As Jeff said, skin tones are subjective and should be modified according to visual preferance. When you custom set your white balance to 18%, the camera will record the image at the associated values. It does not take into consideration that you were looking for warmer or cooler colors in your image. Most people look when the the white balance is a touch warmer. This another good argument for shooting RAW (not to harp on a topic beat to death here ) and you absolutely have to get calibrate your monitor or you are editing your photos blind. There are a few sub-$100 ones out there with the Huey and the Spyder2 being good. I personally use the latter and recalibrate every week.

Btw, what I failed to ask is are you using the gray card to set a custom white balance in your camera or are you shooting the gray card and then sampling it in post to adjust your white balance. I found I get better results setting the custom white balance in-camera. Your camera manual should explain how.

So use the gray card to set your custom balance and then viewing the image on a calibrated monitor, adjust the white balance sliders in ACR or LightRoom to what suits you. Then pull your hair out when it still doesn't look right because skintones will drive you crazy regardless!

One last thing...mixed lighting. This is the most frustrating and most common issue. Say part of the scene is lit by Flourescent bulbs and part by sunlight. The best you do is to gauge your white balance by placing the gray card in the light that will be hitting your subject and then let everything else fall out as it will.

I just used up all of my brain cells before 9:00 so now it will be a long day at work.....