How Good Is Custom White Balance Over AWB

[rollsman]

I hear so many different Wedding photographers say that the AWB works well for them. I shoot weddings and is it Better to Custom WB ? I would think more indoors with flash mixed with available light. What if you shoot in a catering hall and set up umbrella and shoot portraits. Will the custom WB be better than AWB ? Thanks, rollsman

[dwterry]

Here is a simple experiment for you to try using AWB:

1) Have a model where a bright orange outfit (or red, or some other color).
2) Put her against a single color wall (white if you have it, or some other color).
3) Use some kind of light other than flourescent (because flourescent flickers and changes color 60 times a second).
4) Stand far enough back that in a landscape mode, you can get a full upright body shot.
5) Flip to vertical, now move in closer so that she fills the frame and take another shot.
6) Take several more shots as you move closer and closer, doing a 2/3rds body shot, 1/3rd body, finally a head shot.

Now look at the images you just captured. How many of them have the same white balance? (if you get zero having an identical white balance, don't be surprised)

How many of them have good looking flesh tones?

If you were shooting jpegs only (not raw) and needed to put all of these onto one big poster, how hard would it be for you to get all of the images to "match"?

Do you know why the white balance changed from one picture to the next? (hint: the camera can't see the light, all it knows is what the color of the light is that is being reflected off the subject towards the camera and landing on the sensor - if that light is "colored" by whatever the subject is wearing, then that's the color of light that the camera sees)

Now, if you're shooting raw ... good for you! I highly recommend it. Does it solve this problem? For the most part. You shoot tungsten under flourescent lights and still "fix" the images later.

But I like to be able to show my subjects what the pictures are looking like... so I dial in the appropriate white balance. If I have time, I set a custom white balance. If not, I'll dial in whatever I think is closest (cloudy, tungsten, flourescent).

Anyway, give the experiment a try. The bolder the colors ... on the wall, or in the clothes the subject is wearing, the more the AWB will "get it wrong".

[Christopher Steven b]

I find AWB to be atrocious and I don't understand why it is atrocious. Why isn't whatever algorithm is being used for custom WB (and it seems to be better more of the time) being used for AWB? I just don't get it.

If you're dealing with a mostly fixed environment [e.g. for portraits] then fixing the WB [choosing, say, tungsten or CWB] does make correcting in post a little easier [e.g. if using LR, one can adjust one photo's WB and then copy and paste the setting to the others in the set].

[dwterry]

I find AWB to be atrocious and I don't understand why it is atrocious. Why isn't whatever algorithm is being used for custom WB (and it seems to be better more of the time) being used for AWB? I just don't get it.

Custom WB is "fixed", it doesn't change from one picture to the next.

AWB changes with every image captured based on the colors of the light that are hitting the sensor at the time of capture. (see my post above for a simple to perform experiment)

AWB attempts to "average all colors hitting the sensor" into one overall color to say "hey, this looks like it's being lit by tungsten" and then it subtracts out the colored light it thinks is being used. But if your subject is predominantly one color or another, that changes the color of the light hitting the sensor.

[form]

The great benefit, as I see it, of preset white balance settings is you get the same thing every time, which makes the later color balance adjustments more predictable.

[Christopher Steven b]

@dwterry: I understand that custom WB is fixed. My point is that, at least with my 5d, different algorithms seem to be used vis-a-vis CWB and Auto. CWB is almost always more accurate and I am wondering why that algorithm isn't implemented for Auto. Here is where I am perhaps not being clear. The situation I am intending to point to is one in which nothing in the scene is changing. If nothing in the scene is changing then there isn't a reason for CWB to resolve a scene differently from Auto WB. And yet it does--for me at least.

[asysin2leads]

For a sample of custom white balancing, take a look at the link in my signature.

[SuzyView]

I use AWB more often than not. If I know I have 15 minutes or so before an event, I know I can just take the temperature down or up, and I do it. I take the time and experiment a little, but then, I HAVE TO DEPEND ON MY LCD colors, and I'm not sure I can do that every time. I just shot a competition in May where the stage was just lite completely awful. I had to take the temperature down to like 3300 to make sense of any of it. But mostly, AWB is what I like to use when my LCD shows it's okay. I also shoot in RAW always, so adjusting is not a problem. Just have to learn my new LR2 I got a week ago for batch editing.

[tim]

If you shoot RAW the advantages of AWB are a slightly more accurate histogram and less post processing work. With a jpeg you need to use a preset to get yourself close at least, or use CWB.

I use AWB or presets as I have better things to worry about at weddings. I use CBW only for mixed lighting sources during church ceremonies, and even then only rarely.

[Karl Johnston]

I love shooting in K, personally.

[tim]

I love shooting in K, personally.

Can you enter the number directly? I think I can guess K values pretty well after all the time I spend with them in the raw converter. Yeah I know I could read the manual... I don't wanna ;)

[egordon99]

AWB + raw for me...

I have enough to worry about with getting the lighting set, focus, ISO, f-stop, shutter speed, posing, it would KILL me to have to do a CWB for every lighting situation. One less thing to have to worry about.

AWB generally gets me in the "ballpark", but if it screws it up, no big deal.

[Joelh085]

i was actually just experimenting in my house like 2 days ago.. And it might have just been me and my surroundings (the room is painted yellow, not too strong though, and it was pretty dark in purpose.. my subject was a female statue wearing a lil warm colors) but.. I noticed if I didnt use flash the white balance was a bit off.. too warm, i was at around iso 3200 using AWB. I used a 18% gray card and set my CWB, pics looked a lot better.

When I used flash it didnt really matter if i used CWB or AWB. They both looked good.. That was just me in this situation though. Is this always the case? or most likely?

[egordon99]

AWB+indoors no flash=suck
AWB+flash=less suck
AWB+outdoors=generally doesn't suck but sometimes comes out very blue, or very green, or something in between.

Flash is generally "daylight balanced", so the temperature is similar to daylight. That's why AWB isn't too bad when using flash indoors.

[JackLiu]

I shoot AWB with RAW+JPEG. For those few images where WB is quite off the mark, I post-process RAW images by adjusting Kelvin temperature.