how do you match WB on 100 or more images?

When I edit wedding photos (maybe 200 or more images) on lightroom, it is very hard to get consistency on White balance.... Usually, the images that I had post processed are quite different than the last ones on the list. (I hope you understand what i'm talking about...)

Basically, if I have 100 images to edit, I try edit 30 images and save it. when I come back next day to edit, it looks totally different (sometimes it looks little bluish, some of other images are little yellowish). I never satisfy the WB of the images. I chance the setting too often which results different WB on 100 images.

How do I keep the consistency of white balancing?

BTW my monitors are calibrated....

If you have a batch that all need the same White Balance there are two quick/simple approaches:

To start with you need them all together in the Film Strip. If they are all in one folder, good, otherwise you can put them in a Quick Collection so if you open the Quick Collection they will all show up in the Film Strip!

Then:

1) A quick way is to use the Auto Sync function: in the Develop module, select all the photos in the set that you want to have the same WB. On the bottom right of the module are two buttons. One is Reset, the other (on the left) will either say Sync... or Auto Sync. To use the Auto Sync, if it is not showing that label, click the little button to the side of that button so that Auto Sync is turned on. Then, again with all the photos in the set selected (your "first" one will show in the main window), go ahead and adjust the WB on that first one. When you do make an adjustment to the first image (and "finish" the adjustment) the adjustment will be automatically applied to the rest of the selected images.

This approach is good for a quick "global" adjustment (or more than one if you wish) for all the photos.

2) The second approach is good if you want more flexibility: click that little button to change the Auto Sync to just Sync. Then you can work on an image alone, and when you have edits that you want to "share" select the others in the batch (ensuring that the "master" is the "active" image). Then if you click the Sync button and options window will pop up. All the various develop setting show up with check boxes. If you only want to apply one setting (such as the WB), then click the Check None button and then click on that one setting check box. Then click Synchronize and the setting will be applied. As you can see, though, you can pick and choose what to apply -- I typically work on one image for various adjustments and when I'm happy with it I'll Sync and maybe apply everything but say a crop that I've done to the one image. It's a good tool to play with.

There are other approaches but those are the ones I use.

One thing that is important, though, when working with the WB and Sync: If you end up with your "master" shot having the "As Shot" setting, then Sync, the other images will keep the "As Shot" setting, in other words they won't be changed! So you want to make sure that you do an actual adjustment or change to a WB preset!

Stop changing the settings on your camera and do not use auto WB. If you shoot raw, pick a WB setting (daylight) and shoot away. In post, it will be a lot easier to group your images into like lighting conditions and batch correct the WB on each group. Otherwise you have to correct each image individually.

Kirk

To add to this - I think the WB settings on most cameras are all but superfluous for raw shooting. In an ideal world, a camera manufacturer will make a camera for people who want to shoot raw exclusively. They will get rid of all of the vestiges of JPEG shooting and concentrate on providing controls specifically for a raw shooter who will use a raw workflow. Two WB settings - daylight and UniWB.

The way I see it, we humans have evolved to see things in daylight. Even though our visual systems adapt to contrast and color, we don't walk into a neutral room lit by tungsten and see the walls as neutral gray - we perceive the warmish, orangish light of the tungsten filament, or the weird coolness of a CFL, etc. With all of the emphasis in the industry on white balance in post for raw, we tend to click on something that is supposed to be neutral and leave it as neutral, even though that is really not how we perceive the scene.

Because we have become tuned to daylight, I have been using daylight WB exclusively, no matter what the lighting condition is - this setting actually preserves the appearance of the scene (albeit sometimes overdone) so that "corrections" to the WB often involve little more than a toning down of that appearance.

If you think that switching the camera to the "proper" white balance each time you change lighting conditions is going to somehow help, then, as a JPEG shooter you may find benefit to this approach. Otherwise, if you leave the WB setting on daylight, tungsten shots will appear orangish (and easily identified and sorted), and day lit shots (and flash) will appear "correct" or at least different from the tungsten shots. This makes it easy to sort the two groups for further correction and it preserves the natural warmth of the tungsten shots.

If you use AWB, it is like switching WB for every shot and it will make sorting your images a lot harder, and AWB is usually not "accurate" or desirable anyway.

Just some thoughts.

kirk

tonlylong and kirk thank you for the comments!

I have another questions... if I use RAW, no matter what kind of WB I use, isn't it going to be a auto WB setting when I pull up on lightroom?

It will be "As Shot" in LR, by default - unless you change this behavior.

kirk

Shoot manual so your exposures are the same. Select a batch and white balance them. The WB should be the same for each part of the day, but IMHO the white balance doesn't have to match between say ceremony and reception - reception probably had tungsten light and was more orange than the ceremony. Just correct each part of the day consistently and you'll be fine.

See also my wedding workflow.

enuff4life wrote in post #16999528
tonlylong and kirk thank you for the comments!

I have another questions... if I use RAW, no matter what kind of WB I use, isn't it going to be a auto WB setting when I pull up on lightroom?

If you are shooting jpeg, then you won't have the latitude for any of your adjustments that you would with raw. And LR does read WB on raw images. It won't read any other camera settings.

Actually Lightroom reads WB, ISO, shutter speed and aperture; it ignores Picture Styles and other settings like DLO.

Preeb wrote in post #17001125
If you are shooting jpeg, then you won't have the latitude for any of your adjustments that you would with raw. And LR does read WB on raw images. It won't read any other camera settings.

PixelMagic wrote in post #17001201
Actually Lightroom reads WB, ISO, shutter speed and aperture; it ignores Picture Styles and other settings like DLO.

Essentially for what we are talking about it only reads WB. The rest have nothing to do with adjustments made in the Develop module. They are only part of the metadata information, along with Camera, lens, lens focal length setting, etc.