Am I messing with the white balance?

alaios · December 12, 2014

Hi,
when I posted some shots in the people forum, http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=251156
some of the comments I got where that I the shots look too much red.
I am giving again the initial shots so you can see the reddiness.

These where shots with a middle class aps-c cannon camera. I was processing those with the auto white balance (the camera calculated the whtie balance to be 4550). These where shot early in the morning when the sun was just a bit higher the horizon and the direct reddy sunlight was hitting my subject.

I tried to get rid of this rediness by reduing white balance from 4500 to 4100.
I had also to go to the color channels and reduce a bit the saturation the red and orange channel...
The shots now look like:

To be honest I do not want to remove completely this red tone that shows that the shot was shot early morning

1. What I am doing wrong with the white balance processing? Why the shots look so reddish with the auto setting of the camera?
2. Do the shots still look too much red? I hope I did not take completely this red tone out.

I would like to thank you in advance for your reply

Regards
Alex

pathfinder · December 12, 2014

Were these shot in RAW or jpg, Alois? Was the sunlight shining directly on your friend, or was he lit by reflected sunlight perhaps?

Ignoring your friend's face, I think he is wearing a white shirt collar, is he not? The background does seem to tend toward the blue, and I think he is a bit red, but more importantly, his shirt collar reads a bit red when one measures the RGB pixel data in the image.

If you shot RAW, I might start by trying to get a color balance off his white shirt collar. If this is a jpg, then you will have less latitude to alter the color balance, but I would still start there.

Have the images been cropped at all, are there any other neutral gray areas that might be used for custom white balance target?

Finally, color balance is ultimately an artist's decision, not a technical decision.

alaios · December 13, 2014

These are raw pp in lightoom! He is lit by direct sunlight.. the very morning one that is pure red... What do you mean by "I might start by trying to get a color balance off his white shirt collar"?

Regards
Alex

Richard · December 13, 2014

alaios wrote: »

What do you mean by "I might start by trying to get a color balance off his white shirt collar"?

Lightroom has an eyedropper tool for setting white balance. You can use it to click on any point in the image that you believe should be color neutral (like a white shirt collar) and it will set the temperature and tint of the whole frame accordingly. It's quick and works quite well, though sometimes a little extra tweaking may be needed. You do have to avoid clicking on specular highlights--which can be misleading--but I think the tool itself detects them and just does nothing in that case.

alaios · December 13, 2014

Thanks guys.. At which of the shots you have looked so far the rediness problem looks solved? Does it mean that the camera did not calculate the white balance correctly?

I also applied the white balance selector and click on the white collar.. His face turned green... Behind his face are some pillars that were close to gray and thus I clicked there. White balance stayed exactly where the camera calculated.. so 4600 but this time reduced the tint by -8 (closer to greens).

Do these look better now?

Regards
Alex

pathfinder · December 13, 2014

Alois, I wasn't sure if the pillars were white or illuminated by blue sky in the first images, as they definitely measured a bit blue on my calibrated screen. His shirt read slightly RED with my Digital Color Meter, and still does even in your final images - maybe the shirt wasn't white after all, maybe it was a faint pink. When you reduced the tint 8 points, you are moving from Magenta to green and that removes red from your final image. Adding green removes red, absolutely. Just like adding yellow kills blue.

I think the skin tones in your final two images look pretty good to my eye - that is not a "technical" answer, but a general observation on my screen. The pillars do still read a faint bit blue, but some marble tends to the blue, rather than a true white. And the shirt collars are not a true white either as I MEASURE them, but they look ok to my eye in this image. I do perceive the warmth of the light that you are wanting in your image in your final images also.

Some camera's AWB setting can be fooled when the sun is very low on the horizon, and some folks switch to the Cloudy setting to gather more of that warm light look. Using the Sunlight setting might seem like the best choice, but the Sunlight setting assumes a color temperature near High Noon and will remove some of that warmth you are wanting to catch. Holding a neutral white or grey card in a frame can be helpful for later color correction in the RAW engine as well, as Richard described.

Getting skin tones correct AND PLEASING, is a big part of people photography and Smugmug has a great help sheet here - http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93363

Sometimes what I do with an image that does not seem to want to color balance the way I think it should, is to try a certain setting that I think is close - maybe Sunlit, and note the color temperature and tint settings in LR, then I will use an eye dropper on what I think is a real neutral white tone, and read those color temp and tint settings, and then begin to move the temp and tint settings somewhere between those readings until I find what pleases my eye.

As I said, in the final analysis, the "right" color glance setting is the one that best pleases the artist's eye and the artist's goals for their image.

I would also say that the appearance of this image depends on whether it is viewed on a calibrated screen - my new monitor which is not calibrated yet ( not the one I am using as I type here ) is much more saturated, and brighter and darker, an this image does not look good on it - but that is the fault of its not being calibrated, not the image. I think this image is ok, now, and will probably print that way as well.

alaios · December 15, 2014

First of all thanks a lot for this long answer. I really appreciate. Some more comments follow

pathfinder wrote: »

Alois, I wasn't sure if the pillars were white or illuminated by blue sky in the first images, as they definitely measured a bit blue on my calibrated screen. His shirt read slightly RED with my Digital Color Meter, and still does even in your final images - maybe the shirt wasn't white after all, maybe it was a faint pink. When you reduced the tint 8 points, you are moving from Magenta to green and that removes red from your final image. Adding green removes red, absolutely. Just like adding yellow kills blue.

I think the skin tones in your final two images look pretty good to my eye - that is not a "technical" answer, but a general observation on my screen. The pillars do still read a faint bit blue, but some marble tends to the blue, rather than a true white. And the shirt collars are not a true white either as I MEASURE them, but they look ok to my eye in this image. I do perceive the warmth of the light that you are wanting in your image in your final images also.

Some camera's AWB setting can be fooled when the sun is very low on the horizon, and some folks switch to the Cloudy setting to gather more of that warm light look. Using the Sunlight setting might seem like the best choice, but the Sunlight setting assumes a color temperature near High Noon and will remove some of that warmth you are wanting to catch. Holding a neutral white or grey card in a frame can be helpful for later color correction in the RAW engine as well, as Richard described.

Hi collar is white. I checked on other shots too and is white.. so I am not sure what is going wrong with this procedure.
Something else that still bothers me is that I have a calibrated screen even though it has limited srgb support, so I have done my bit so far...

1. The question then is what is missing from my workflow (apart from a new monitor).. I checked the last version that has the tint corrected and on my cell phone his face looks like tomato red... I am sure I will get the answer "your cellphone is not calibrated" but we like it or not .. this is where are clients would see a shot... How I am finding a balance between my reality (a calibrated screen) and what of the rest of the world is using?

2. You are right that I have to start using a grey card.. If I am not wrong a color card (this one with the small color tiles) work similarly with the grey card that can also fix colors. Perhaps getting this one would be a better choice. Still though how do you use it? Which is the right angle to put it in the scene.. Small changes in the angle changes the light the card sees.

3. When are the cases that auto WB can be fooled so I can be more careful for the color tuning in such cases?

I will read the link you also gave. Thanks
Alex

pathfinder · December 16, 2014

Alois, if you are really serious about your color, get a Color Checker Passport, and use it in your shooting. -- http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1257 It will help you set the correct white glance in LR when processing RAW files.

It will really help you deal with your color balance as you shoot.

One other thing you should consider, is to learn to perform a custom white balance for your camera as you shoot. To do this you need a non specular white target to shoot a jpg ( not RAW ) which is then used to create a custom white balance for you camera for that specific lighting situation. Not something I do very often, but it really can help when shooting jpgs to get the color correct at the time of shooting. The Canon Manual for your camera body describes how to create a custom white balance for shooting jpgs with your camera.

Am I messing with the white balance?

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