Correcting White Balance

MarkS

Is there any way to correct the white balance in PSE? I usually shoot jpeg ( I know, i should shoot raw. Then I wouldnt have to ask this question) and I took some pics of my new kittens and I notice that the WB is off( very yellow. Is there any way to fix this or do I need to adjust in camera?

Andy

Best to do it in camera yes. Set wb manually, and/or get a grey card. Shooting RAW, like you mentioned, is the very best method IMO.

you could try this method ( I don't use PSE but I googled and found this - and it makes sense)

You need to use the middle/gray eyedropper, and click on the dark gray card. From there on you are good.

You can also modify the procedure to include adjustment for dynamic range (Black and White points).

-Select the White eyedropper and click on the White WhiBal
--Select the Black eyedropper and click on the Black sticker (making sure that the sticker has no reflections
--Select the Gray (middle) eyedropper and click on the dark Gray WhiBal card.

Then record the values (3 for each of R, G, and , and then enter them into other pics with the same lighting.

The White and Black slider may need to be adjusted depending on the lighting and exposure of each photo, but the White balance will be as good as it can be, given that it is being done after the fact on a processed JPEG image.

MarkS

Thanks for the quick reply Andy. I also had some luck by adjusting the individual red, green and blue levels

jfriend

Fixing white balance in PSE3/PSE4

MarkS wrote:

Is there any way to correct the white balance in PSE? I usually shoot jpeg ( I know, i should shoot raw. Then I wouldnt have to ask this question) and I took some pics of my new kittens and I notice that the WB is off( very yellow. Is there any way to fix this or do I need to adjust in camera?

If you have PSE3 (and presumably PSE4, though I haven't seen it yet), there are direct white balance controls for JPEGs. Just load the image into the editor and select the Quick Fix tab in the upper right of the window. This will give you a set of sliders down the right side of the screen. Two of those sliders are temperature and tint - the exact things you need for fixing white balance on JPEGs.

MarkS

dang all I have is PSE2

ginger_55

MarkS wrote:

Is there any way to correct the white balance in PSE? I usually shoot jpeg ( I know, i should shoot raw. Then I wouldnt have to ask this question) and I took some pics of my new kittens and I notice that the WB is off( very yellow. Is there any way to fix this or do I need to adjust in camera?

I shoot RAW, and I learned a bit about WB and RAW this summer, but sometimes I forget. I go along working a shot up, then the WB shows up as being "off".

Lazy as I am, I don't want to go back to the beginning, so this is a fast/easy way to sometimes fix WB, IMO.

If there is a white part in the photo. I cannot work with black, I can't find it well. I certainly can't find grey, or middle ground colors. Sure, I have been setting my own manual stuff on my cameras since the early seventies, but with an eyedropper I can't do it.

So, it only works with white. I go to curves, but anywhere there is an eyedropper that adjusts WB using white would be OK, I would think. Then I take the eyedropper and find the whitest place I can see on the photo, and I click there with the white eyedropper on that place I want dead white. (whether that makes things look blown, well, if I care that much I would go back to the beginning, but you could probably back up just a bit on what you did.).

If it works, it works. If it works, in my mind, there is not a huge shift. I don't want crazy stuff. If things start getting crazy, I cancel the whole thing thereby getting rid of my WB screw up. Then I try again. Sometimes it is hard to find just the right place, you don't want it over exposed, or under, because of this thing. But it was a sweet thing for me when getting my photos ready for the calendar this past week. I went by and checked almost each one for sharpness, a thing Pathfinder, I think it was, taught me, using layers (that is a digression), but often I would intensify the color, that would kind of throw the wB or intensify one that was a bit off. So that is when I would go to curves, find one tad of a whitest place and use it. It was consistent in "fixing" small problems.

If there is no white in the photo, you are screwed as far as I am concerned. I eyeball it where ever I can. Or you could figure out Andy's method. I am not that patient. I Should be.

ginger