White balance hour before sundown?

I'm learning how to adjust the white balance on my RAW images. I've been using the WB dropper and finding either a white collar or the brides dress and clicking on that. The pictures have been turning out great so far. However, for photos that were taken about an hour before sundown, I'm getting temps between 6K-7K using the dropper.

Is that normal? I don't want the photos to look too orangy.

Your thoughts?

Yep that's normal enough. At times i've had to go up to near 10K to get a good WB, can't remember the circumstances though.

Are you using a calibrated monitor?

tim wrote in post #13277947
Yep that's normal enough. At times i've had to go up to near 10K to get a good WB, can't remember the circumstances though.

Are you using a calibrated monitor?

Thanks for the response!

As I'm not a professional, I have a 5 year old 24 inch Westinghouse LCD. I have done a few of those online calibration pages to make sure there aren't any glaring issues, but I'm mostly relying on the WB dropper at this point.

When I use the dropper, it also adjusts the Tint setting. Is this something I should leave to PS or simply keep at 0?

You need a hardware calibration device. A spyder 3 express/pro works well and is pretty cheap. Without that you're flying blind.

I use the white shirt/dress as a starting point, and adjust from there. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes its too warm/cool/green/pink.

It is called the golden hour for those lovely warm tones. If you white balance on anything white it will be too cool. Best by eye.

Yeah, w/out being calibrated, you're definitely guessing. Once in a while I'll try the auto WB in Lightroom, just to see where it lands. Even though I usually have to tweak the WB after that, I've found the AutoWB does a good job with the hue, making a good WB faster in red/orange light.

I've never even seen the Auto WB in LR! Didn't know it existed...
I've shot so many weddings I can usually tell what the right temperature should be, especially if it's only a single light source like the golden hour. The tricky parts come if I'm in a dark room with different colored walls and ceiling, tungsten and fluorescent lighting throughout, and my own lighting equipment. In those instances I shoot with the WB in K (Kelvin) mode and make a guesstimate for the first few shots, just to make sure I'm in the ballpark.
My Apple Cinema Display has never been calibrated but I've compared it to prints I've made and it seems to be spot on.

kbfate_joker wrote in post #13278803
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When I use the dropper, it also adjusts the Tint setting. Is this something I should leave to PS or simply keep at 0?

Are you using the eyedropper with Curves or Levels? Also, are you using the white or the gray eyedropper? Either way, yes, your tint will also be adjusted when you do this; white balance is not only temperature but tint as well.

If you're using the WB tool in Lightroom it will also adjust the tint accordingly; no need to do it again in Photoshop (since the full name for Lightroom is actually Adobe Photoshop Lightroom!).

PhotoMatte wrote in post #13306555
Are you using the eyedropper with Curves or Levels? Also, are you using the white or the gray eyedropper? Either way, yes, your tint will also be adjusted when you do this; white balance is not only temperature but tint as well.

I use the white WB eye dropper. So far, the results have been pretty good.

PhotoMatte wrote in post #13306563
If you're using the WB tool in Lightroom it will also adjust the tint accordingly; no need to do it again in Photoshop (since the full name for Lightroom is actually Adobe Photoshop Lightroom!).

I don't actually use LR at all. I do all my work in Photoshop's raw viewer. I'm not making major changes to images, so I rarely ever have to open the raw file in "full" photoshop mode.