I'm still confused about WB!

[KarinM]

I discovered this site a few days ago and have been spending every free minute trying to absorb all of the information available. I've learned a tremendous amount and have been inspired by many of the photos on display. I'm light years away from where I want to be, but we all have to start somewhere!

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong regarding white balance. My whites are turning grey. I'm using the custom WB function; took a photo of a white card under the existing lighting & used this photo as my custom setting. It took care of the yellow cast, but the background whites are no longer white. Attached are two photos where the objects were placed on white copy paper. As you can see they're definitely not white here. What's confusing me the most is the peppermint photo. The color is pretty good on the candy & clear paper - so how can the background be so off? The thumb tacks are clear, so I'm assuming they're just picking up the background color??

I'm using the EOS digital rebel. Thanks for your help.

Karin

ps- please don't judge these based on the lighting. I just used a couple of floodlights in my basement. Figured I'd get the basics first before I spend any more money.

[steven]

The white balance look OK.
Looks like you are just not getting very much reflected light from the white paper, so it looks not as bright.
You can try to change the angle of your lights. Judging from the shadows you have the lights behind the camera and off to one side a little.
You might try to move them up higher so they point down more on the paper to give you more light bouncing back to the camera.

I'm still working on issues like this so please take my advice as only another amature.
There are many others on this site that have been there and done that and can give you details.
I place my opinion here just in case:)

[KarinM]

Thanks Steven - I'll give it a try. I may have been pulling my hair out for all the wrong reasons! As I said, I don't have the proper lighting, but I can certainly add another flood & try different base materials.

[jimsolt]

Karin,
Steven is right.

[QUOTE=steven]The white balance look OK.
Looks like you are just not getting very much reflected light from the white paper, so it looks not as bright./QUOTE]

You actually had two problems. The one of the color cast, you solved with your white balance adjustment. The second is a matter of exposure and light. Enough light or a proper exposure will make the whites white.

You're on the right track. It is easy to confuse the two variables.

Jim

[robertwgross]

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong regarding white balance. My whites are turning grey.

In general, that is NOT a white balance problem. If your whites are turning gray, or if your blacks are turning gray, that is an exposure problem. Your camera's exposure metering does not know colors or shades, so it assumes that everything is 18% gray, and it tries to produce an exposure solution for that. As a result, lots of whites look gray, and lots of blacks will look gray, depending on the situation.

In essense, that is what exposure compensation is all about. The human's eye and brain can look at a scene and say "I think the metering will get fooled by this white or that black, so I am going to adjust it slightly with the exposure compensation control."

When I shoot bright white snow, I try to set exposure compensation to +1.5.

Read up on it and see if that helps any.

If your whites look pink or yellow, then that is a white balance problem.

---Bob Gross---

[Jesper]

Bob is right. White balance and exposure are two different things, you seem to be mixing them up.

White balance is about how colours look: if a white subject is white in your photo and not yellow, orange or blue.

Exposure is about the brightness of the subject on your photo - if it's too dark, too light or just right, apart from the colour.

If your whites look gray, then you've underexposed the photo. The gray does look neutral gray in your image, and doesn't have a colour cast to it, which would mean the white balance would be set wrong.

If you make a photo of a subject that is mostly white, you must use + exposure compensation as Bob explained, because by default the camera meter will set the exposure so that the subject gets a brightness of "average gray".

[KarinM]

I thank all of you for pointing me in the right direction. I really never considered the exposure as being the problem. Tonight I took the same photo with +.5; +1 & +2 compensation & found that the +1 worked the best. Attached is last nights photo next to the one I took tonight for comparision - what a difference. I'm sure with some practice I'll get a better feel as to what setting to use under different conditions (I hope)

One more question. I took these using the manual setting, viewing the meter to see what it indicated the exposure to be (0, +1, etc). I then adjusted the speed to get the exposure setting I was looking for. Is that the correct way to do it, or should I have set the compensation in the menu settings?

Thanks again for all of your help.

Karin

[Tom W]

Either way works - whichever is easier. The good thing about doing it in manual is that it is quick and you can see what resulting aperture and shutter speed you end up with. Full user control with the flick of a dial or two.

[robertwgross]

OK, now you are on the way to mastering the exposure.

Next is the white balance. I don't see any particular problem here. However, there is a bit of pink that is on the white. That is OK, since that is probably reflected off the pink of the candy. Suppose that the white looked kind of green or blue or something. That might be a white balance problem, and that is easily corrected BEFORE the fact by setting a custom white balance, or it can be corrected AFTER the fact in PhotoShop. Custom is better and more repeatable, but PhotoShop can work also. You might see a white balance problem if you fool around with lighting other than sunlight or flash.

---Bob Gross---

[Tom W]

OK, now you are on the way to mastering the exposure.

Next is the white balance. I don't see any particular problem here. However, there is a bit of pink that is on the white. That is OK, since that is probably reflected off the pink of the candy. Suppose that the white looked kind of green or blue or something. That might be a white balance problem, and that is easily corrected BEFORE the fact by setting a custom white balance, or it can be corrected AFTER the fact in PhotoShop. Custom is better and more repeatable, but PhotoShop can work also. You might see a white balance problem if you fool around with lighting other than sunlight or flash.

---Bob Gross---

That may be the actual color of the candy. QC in the hard-candy business isn't what it used to be. :)

That doesn't mean that it can't be adjusted a bit though.

[Hellashot]

You can change the white balance/tint in basically any post processing program by a function that tells you to click on a part of the image that should be white, so in camera WB setting isn't very important.

[robertwgross]

You can change the white balance/tint in basically any post processing program by a function that tells you to click on a part of the image that should be white, so in camera WB setting isn't very important.

It's better to get it right the first time IN the camera. Besides, sometimes there is no part of the image that is supposed to be white. Then, what are you going to do with PhotoShop?

---Bob Gross---