Struggling with white balance

Clickr

Senior Member
I feel I am still struggling with White Balance and it is becoming a night mare. Let us leave post processing and using grey cards for white balance. I see professionals nailing their white balance, right at the camera. Even while using Kelvin and trying to match the ambient white balance, neutral, I still feel skin tones are dramatically warm, any leads please....




DSC_7194.jpg
 
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Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Without an example of what you're talking about with EXIF data, and without a Grey card as a reference, and without referring to post processing... it's pretty difficult to help you.

You can adjust the Hue in one or more camera profiles in your camera... but that's a lengthy trial and error process...
 

Chucktin

Senior Member
Don't forget that a camera is not a set of eyes. In a mixed light environment the record a camera makes reports and displays as accurately the manufacturer and your presets allow.
A grey card is termed "middle grey" because it reflects light in the middle of an approximate of the human visual spectrum. The weasel words are approximate and reflect.
Also I would use (carefully!) a white reference not a grey one. In very general terms you can ignore shadows except for very high ISO settings where you'll be dealing with electronic signal noise. And you can accept the cameras native middle grey unless you have deliberately modified it.
But you ignore whites at your peril. Better to have some highlight headroom than lop off the right, white, end of the histogram. You cannot recover what you've lost.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
 

Andy W

Senior Member
Even while using Kelvin and trying to match the ambient white balance, neutral, I still feel skin tones are dramatically warm, any leads please....

Using the auto WB setting in camera had my subjects almost yellow. I now use 5000 for portraits which gets them pretty close.
 

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
If it is a white balance issue this may help.

One little trick that works quite well when you are learning how to use your white balance settings is to turn your camera's live view mode on. In this mode, often used for video, you will be able to push the WB button and click through the WB settings or dial in your Kelvin temperature all while seeing the changes happen in real time in your camera.

From article here. https://fstoppers.com/post-production/learn-shoot-proper-white-balance-using-kelvin-temps-3328

Never tried it. Just played with it a little just now.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Are you shooting RAW or jpeg? When shooting RAW, you can easily adjust the white balance during post processing especially if using either Lightroom or Camera RAW. You can choose from Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, etc. or even manually tweak it. If shooting jpeg, you can also adjust the white balance with Lightroom or Camera RAW, but you won't have the options of Daylight, Cloudy, etc. BUT please keep in mind there are camera profiles loaded into your camera such as Standard, Vivid, Neutral, etc. And those will also affect your white balance.

So even if you are shooting at a specific Kelvin temperature, if your camera is set for Vivid as the Camera Profile, the colors will appear quite vibrant. How is yours set?
 

Clickr

Senior Member
I have attached the image for your reference Bro...


Without an example of what you're talking about with EXIF data, and without a Grey card as a reference, and without referring to post processing... it's pretty difficult to help you.

You can adjust the Hue in one or more camera profiles in your camera... but that's a lengthy trial and error process...
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
You need to Download Nikon's Picture Control Utility.

It allows you to adjust/create your own picture control files for your camera and then upload/replace the ones in your camera.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I looked at your original image in Camera RAW. Take a look at the two red circles on the upper right. The white triangle on the left indicates your blacks are clipped. That means you have lost detail in those areas. Now look at the photo. The blue areas that are circled represent the blacks that are clipped.

Then look at the red triangle on the upper right. That means your whites are clipped. The areas that are red that are circled are the clipped whites. Unfortunately clipped whites are displayed as red splotches in Camera RAW, and some of the red colors in your image are clipped. You've lost detail in those areas, too.

clipping.jpg


So I did a quick edit in Camera RAW. I allowed the program to use Auto White Balance. If you look at the image above, the White Balance indicates As Shot. I used the drop down menu and chose Auto. That lowered the temperature to be more blue (sorry, I didn't think to take a screen shot of the settings). It also changed settings such as the exposure, lowered the contrast, helped correct the clipped whites and blacks, plus other changes. The Kelvin you used was way too warm, and the colors were much too saturated which only exacerbated the warm skin tones.

DSC_7194 after edit.jpg
 

Clickr

Senior Member
Beautifully explained, I appreciate the time you took to explain this in such a way. One last thing, you mentioned, "the colors were much too saturated," Is there anything that I could do in camera, do retify this or this can only be done through HSL Tab in LR in postprocessing.


I looked at your original image in Camera RAW. Take a look at the two red circles on the upper right. The white triangle on the left indicates your blacks are clipped. That means you have lost detail in those areas. Now look at the photo. The blue areas that are circled represent the blacks that are clipped.

Then look at the red triangle on the upper right. That means your whites are clipped. The areas that are red that are circled are the clipped whites. Unfortunately clipped whites are displayed as red splotches in Camera RAW, and some of the red colors in your image are clipped. You've lost detail in those areas, too.

View attachment 352456

So I did a quick edit in Camera RAW. I allowed the program to use Auto White Balance. If you look at the image above, the White Balance indicates As Shot. I used the drop down menu and chose Auto. That lowered the temperature to be more blue (sorry, I didn't think to take a screen shot of the settings). It also changed settings such as the exposure, lowered the contrast, helped correct the clipped whites and blacks, plus other changes. The Kelvin you used was way too warm, and the colors were much too saturated which only exacerbated the warm skin tones.

View attachment 352457
 

480sparky

Senior Member
My first post was without any reference image, and I meant to say, I edited the first post, adding the reference image. Sorry that i was not clear and confused you...

OK, all well and good.

I just take a shot and check it on the back of the LCD screen, I adjust kelvin just seeing at the pic, thats all...

But 'just looking at the monitor' is about the worst way to set the white balance. Shoot raw, include a gray card in an image, and set WB in post.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Beautifully explained, I appreciate the time you took to explain this in such a way. One last thing, you mentioned, "the colors were much too saturated," Is there anything that I could do in camera, do retify this or this can only be done through HSL Tab in LR in postprocessing.

You'd need to go into the menu of your body and find out what Picture Control is set. Neutral should definitely yield less, but if you are shooting jpeg, the images might look too bland. The other option is to use whatever Picture Control is set - but you can go in and have the option to lower the saturation in-camera through that Picture Control setting. You can also tweak your contrast as well as other settings if you choose.

If that doesn't work well enough, then change to a different Picture Control (stay away from Vivid as that's too colorful and contrasty). Tweak any individual settings if necessary. If that doesn't work, then try yet another Picture Control. Off hand I can't remember all of them. I'm pretty sure mine is set to Standard which might be the default. All you can do is to experiment.

And if shooting jpegs, any white balance above 5500 is getting into the warm colors. At times even 5500 is too warm. You have to consider the environment you are in. If you are indoors with tungsten lighting (the old fashioned light bulbs that give off a brownish coloring), then you'd have to choose tungsten as your white balance to color correct the image in camera. If you are shooting RAW or using Photoshop or Lightoom, then you can easily change your white balance during post processing. Otherwise, try the suggestion about tweaking the Picture Control in camera. :)
 

Clickr

Senior Member
Thanks a ton !!!

You'd need to go into the menu of your body and find out what Picture Control is set. Neutral should definitely yield less, but if you are shooting jpeg, the images might look too bland. The other option is to use whatever Picture Control is set - but you can go in and have the option to lower the saturation in-camera through that Picture Control setting. You can also tweak your contrast as well as other settings if you choose.

If that doesn't work well enough, then change to a different Picture Control (stay away from Vivid as that's too colorful and contrasty). Tweak any individual settings if necessary. If that doesn't work, then try yet another Picture Control. Off hand I can't remember all of them. I'm pretty sure mine is set to Standard which might be the default. All you can do is to experiment.

And if shooting jpegs, any white balance above 5500 is getting into the warm colors. At times even 5500 is too warm. You have to consider the environment you are in. If you are indoors with tungsten lighting (the old fashioned light bulbs that give off a brownish coloring), then you'd have to choose tungsten as your white balance to color correct the image in camera. If you are shooting RAW or using Photoshop or Lightoom, then you can easily change your white balance during post processing. Otherwise, try the suggestion about tweaking the Picture Control in camera. :)
 
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