Raw shooting and white balance

Am I correct in thinking if you shoot everything in Raw you do not need to worry about setting white balance?

And if your not shooting in Raw you want to take a picture of white paper to set the Custom White Balance?

Just trying to get the hang of the white balance. I here the auto white balance isn't the greatest. I use my 20D and it's usually pretty good, especially if you use the preset. Just have to remember to change depending on lighting situation or you can come up with some funky colors.

Thanks Brittany

-=The RAW Faqs=- RAW Processing info and links

It's true that you don't NEED to, but why not take a minute & at least get close?

I do, but it's been argued endlessly here.

I sometimes use a preset, but NEVER use "AutoWB".
Gray card: Why your meter may be lying to you! I started out to check one thing & learned about another.

I think that this will be something to think about in relation to how you process the RAW images. If you are using a grey-card, you need to just shoot with a pre-set WB and then use that.

Shooting in RAW is the easy bit. Processing the image is where the real issues lie. It's not hard and it gives you much more room to post process the image.

Regards

Martin

Brittany,

There are several ways to tackle the white balance issue, and as Frank mentioned, the subject tends to generate some contention around here.

The best way to get a feel for it is to experiment. Shoot white cards, grey cards, and various subjects under various lighting. Try Auto WB as well as the presets. Try the eyedropper tool in your RAW converter on white or grey parts of images, along with the color temp. slider.

You'll eventually get a feel for when auto WB works and when it doesn't, as well as the various techniques for getting it right.

Newbie questions..What is a gray card? Also about white balance, why would i need to change it?

A piece of cardboard that's printed with a solid coat of 18% grey. They are available at camera shops or the usual online retailers. Traditionally they have been used for manual metering. With digital cameras they can also be used for a custom white balance.

The balance of the various colors in the visible spectrum changes with different light sources (sun/shade/tungsten/fl​uorescent). Our brains adjust for this so we don't tend to notice the effect, but it needs to be accounted for when we make pictures. With auto white balance, the camera will "guess" at the color temperature, but doesn't always guess right. There are several ways to adjust the white balance both before you take a shot (custom WB or using the camera's presets), or afterwards with a RAW converter (if you shoot RAW).

Check out the first two images in this thread.

If you WB is important to you and you need the colors to be accurate, then you need to make sure you get it right when you are taking the picture, whether you are shooting RAW or JPEG (the format you use for shooting has nothing to do with it). And the only way to get it right is by using a white or gray reference card, either by including it in one of your shots or by setting custom wb with it.

So how do you use the gray card?

To use it for metering, you hold it in the same light as your subject, move in to fill the frame with it, and adjust exposure manually until the needle is in the center.

To use it for a custom WB, follow the instructions in your camera's instruction manual.

http://pictureflow.fil​eburst.com/_Tutorials/​WhiBal/index.html

I have no connection with WhiBal - but I do have one.

Thanks martcol, the videos really clarified what the cards are for and how simple
they are to use. Thank you for the link. I must now experiment...I used to wonder
why photographers carried cards..

But wouldnt the white balance be off if he selected the card using the eyedrop tool with Tungeston balance?

Using the eyedropper tool in a RAW converter to set WB will replace the WB setting in the camera when the shot was taken. It becomes irrelevent.

When shooting in raw you don't need to set white balance or use card do you?
You can custom set everything, right?

True, you don't HAVE to, but it takes 30 seconds, so why not? If you screw up & shoot a gig of jpegs, it just makes life a bit easier.