Auto WB or specific setting?

duckster wrote in post #18855750
Have not done manual WB before. How would you do it to account for the color of the track?

Start with one of these in you camera bag. They are really useful when shooting in artificial lighting or subjects with a lot of colors and you want to get the WB right in camera. Super easy to use, packs up really small and light, and it's the cost of a In 'n Out #1 Meal. Takes maybe 2~3 minutes to set the camera WB and leave it.

mike_d wrote in post #18855754
The scene is irrelevent. Take a picture of a neutral target under the same light, then tell the camera to use that shot for the custom WB.

I've had problems finding a neutral target in many environments. Reflected light can cause everything to look an odd color. It isn't just man made features that cause this. I've had cameras that made everything in the woods look green because of all the green leaves. It may actually be what is seen but it isn't the photo I want. Maybe our brain compensates for such things but when I shoot a photo of a person in the woods and their face looks green I am not really happy with that. So I have used manual WB to fix that problem.

Here's a photo I took several years ago with a fairly cheap camera which usually did pretty well. It isn't so much obvious in the person's face but notice the bird house sitting on the right. It was white. It looks way too green in this photo. This was just an example I thought of. I mostly had issues like this with my video cameras. I learned to fix the issue with manual WB.

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Jeff_56 wrote in post #18855913
Reflected light can cause everything to look an odd color. It isn't just man made features that cause this. I've had cameras that made everything in the woods look green because of all the green leaves. It may actually be what is seen but it isn't the photo I want. Maybe our brain compensates for such things but when I shoot a photo of a person in the woods and their face looks green I am not really happy with that. So I have used manual WB to fix that problem.

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I have often experienced the very thing that you speak of. . But I always thought of that as a tint issue, not really a white balance issue. . Even when you get the color temperature perfect, colors can still look really weird, because there is more to color than the temperature.


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I cary an 8x10 grey card in the laptop pocket of my camera bag - its like what is linked above, but just a grey piece of card board. When in doubt I shot it to set the camera. To be honest though, haven't had to do that in some time. If I do have issues with a shot I just adjust in LR using the dropper and it clears up the issue - normally. That said, the grey card never failed... and is dirt cheap.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18855993
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I have often experienced the very thing that you speak of. . But I always thought of that as a tint issue, not really a white balance issue. . Even when you get the color temperature perfect, colors can still look really weird, because there is more to color than the temperature.

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It's my understanding that WB is all about removing color casts in an image. If something white doesn't appear white in the image we fix it with the WB setting. Yes it is a matter of tint but removing the tint is essentially what the WB function does.

I found this quote on the Nikon web site.

"The color of an object is affected by the lighting conditions under which it is viewed. Our eyes and our brain compensate for different types of light—that's why a white object appears white to us whether it's viewed in sunlight, under overcast skies or indoors under incandescent or fluorescent light. But digital cameras need help to emulate this process, to compensate for different types of lighting and render a white object white.

The white balance setting is that help."

It makes white objects, and everything else really, appear as they should. In my photo both the birdhouse and the shirt have green tint because of all the light reflecting from the green leaves. Removing is done easily by adjusting the WB.

Our brains compensate for odd lighting conditions at least to an extent. Cameras can't do that. I learned to use WB to compensate for tint issues. There maybe should be some green tint to things when standing in the woods. But looking at a photo I don't get that it's the conditions that caused the problem. I just think the photo is off. So I compensate for it. It may not lead to a perfect capture of the scene but it seems to look better to me.

Jeff_56 wrote in post #18856011
In my photo both the birdhouse and the shirt have green tint because of all the light reflecting from the green leaves. Removing is done easily by adjusting the WB.

It's interesting that it works that way for you.

With my cameras and the editing software I use, changing the white balance does not help with the woodland green color cast. . White balance only changes the color temperature, not the color cast.

Green is essentially neither warm nor cool - green is both blue and yellow, normally in pretty much equal proportions, so it is no mystery why changing the color temperature doesn't take away the green color cast.

So for me and with the gear and software I use, only the tint adjustment takes away that greenish color cast.

White Balance = color temperature

Tint = color cast

These are two different things, and in my experience they are not even related to one another.


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Jeff_56 wrote in post #18856011
It's my understanding that WB is all about removing color casts in an image. If something white doesn't appear white in the image we fix it with the WB setting. Yes it is a matter of tint but removing the tint is essentially what the WB function does.

I found this quote on the Nikon web site.

"The color of an object is affected by the lighting conditions under which it is viewed. Our eyes and our brain compensate for different types of light—that's why a white object appears white to us whether it's viewed in sunlight, under overcast skies or indoors under incandescent or fluorescent light. But digital cameras need help to emulate this process, to compensate for different types of lighting and render a white object white.

The white balance setting is that help."

It makes white objects, and everything else really, appear as they should. In my photo both the birdhouse and the shirt have green tint because of all the light reflecting from the green leaves. Removing is done easily by adjusting the WB.

Our brains compensate for odd lighting conditions at least to an extent. Cameras can't do that. I learned to use WB to compensate for tint issues. There maybe should be some green tint to things when standing in the woods. But looking at a photo I don't get that it's the conditions that caused the problem. I just think the photo is off. So I compensate for it. It may not lead to a perfect capture of the scene but it seems to look better to me.

That goes for many things. We look at objects for a long time so as you said we adjust for it. The camera sees it for less than a second. We not see the hard light which blows out tree leaves on a sunny mid day but the camera will show it.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18856014
Green is essentially neither warm nor cool - green is both blue and yellow, normally in pretty much equal proportions, so it is no mystery why changing the color temperature doesn't take away the green color cast.

So for me and with the gear and software I use, only the tint adjustment takes away that greenish color cast.

White Balance = color temperature

Tint = color cast

These are two different things, and in my experience they are not even related to one another.

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Maybe it is just the cameras I was using. I haven't had much of an issue with it on my DSLR's to be honest. I tend to fix issues in post processing more than anything especially with RAW images.

The image I posted was from a pocket camera. And my worst issues were with video cameras I have. With those adjusting the camera by using a white object was enough to get it adjusted correctly. The main issues I had were with lights in gyms etc.. I got in the habit of adjusting the WB no matter where I went. If a gym had a lot of orange paint so that everything around looked orange the WB would correct the issue. I don't actually recall doing it with a green tint outdoors like in this photo. I just remembered how that photo showed so much green so I used it. It was the only example I could think of right off where the light caused whites to be off. Possibly it would not have worked with green. But I seem to remember making the adjustment and getting better results in the woods. It's been a while. I mainly remember adjusting for lighting in places where there was something causing the light to be affected indoors. Of course the lighting was another issue. But my main problem was with reflected light.

BTW green may be near the sweet spot for light but the fluorescent setting on WB adjustments is partly to remove green light that comes form fluorescent lighting. Green can be compensated for by WB. The fluorescent setting doesn't do much for the reflected light off of leaves I wouldn't think. The temp is obviously going to be different even if there is green light in fluorescent lighting.

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I think some of this may be a semantics thing.

To me, white balance means color temperature, period.

But I realize that to others, white balance may mean a combination of color temperature and tint, and the combined effects that they have on the colors in an image.

I am the kind of guy who likes to keep everything precisely defined and separate from everything else. . I tend to prefer definitions that separate the components of a thing, instead of definitions that are more inclusive.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18856042
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To me, white balance means color temperature, period.

But I realize that to others, white balance may mean a combination of color temperature and tint, and the combined effects that they have on the colors in an image.

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Color temperature is the hue of the light. I'm not trying to be combative but what else is color temp?

Here's what the B&H site says about color temp.

",,,color temperature is a measurement of the hue of a particular light source."

https://www.bhphotovid​eo.com …emperature-digital-images

Hue and tint mean the same thing. Technically tint means something added to make the color lighter but people use it the same way they use hue (not exactly correct but that's people pretty much always assume tint means hue). If we want to split hairs there are differences between the meaning of color, hue and tint but most people use them interchangeably.

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Jeff_56 wrote in post #18856077
Color temperature is the hue of the light. I'm not trying to be combative but what else is color temp?

It is the temperature of the color, nothing more. . It is about the color being warm or cool or in between warm and cool. . It has nothing to do with whether the color has a megenta cast to it or a greenish cast to it.

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Jeff_56 wrote in post #18856077
Hue and tint mean the same thing.

Yes, exactly right. . Hue and tint are the same thing. . Temperature is something different all together.

This is why in editing software like Lightroom or iPhoto or whatever one uses, Color Temperature and Tint are different adjustments, each with its own independent slider. . When you increase or decrease the Color Temperature, it has no effect on the tint. . Conversely, when you move the Tint slider, it changes the hue, but has no effect on the color temperature.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18856081
This is why in editing software like Lightroom or iPhoto or whatever one uses, Color Temperature and Tint are different adjustments, each with its own independent slider. . When you increase or decrease the Color Temperature, it has no effect on the tint. . Conversely, when you move the Tint slider, it changes the hue, but has no effect on the color temperature.

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I consider them two sides of the same coin or two axes on the same plane. You need both X and Y axes to accurately describe the location of a point on a plane. Neither alone will do the job of neutralizing a color cast. Lightroom has both temp and tint sliders under the WB section so I don't buy the "WB=temp only" argument. Call the axes temp & tint, X and Y, A & B, or tacos & burgers. Doesn't matter to me.

gjl711 wrote in post #18855792
Start with one of these in you camera bag. They are really useful when shooting in artificial lighting or subjects with a lot of colors and you want to get the WB right in camera. Super easy to use, packs up really small and light, and it's the cost of a In 'n Out #1 Meal. Takes maybe 2~3 minutes to set the camera WB and leave it.

There is a minor debate over whether a gray target or a white target is better.

A gray target such as linked is better.

While a white target is usable, it requires correct exposure to accurately measure the values, because it's very likely to blow out the part of the spectrum most strongly represented in the light without being immediately noticeable.

A gray target OTOH can be quickly shot and be quite far off from a correct exposure, but if it's still a tone of gray (rather than black or white), it has still captured the entire spectrum being produced by the light.

Gray is easier to use.

The control marked in Kelvin on a camera changes what a "color temperature" meter measures in Kelvin. If a color temperature meter measures 3950K and you set the control on the camera that is adjustable by Kelvin to 3950K, that axis of the color adjustment graph will be correctly set to reproduce as white.

You can give it whatever name you want in your own head, but if you want to meter it and then set it and talk to other people about it, "color temperature" is the nomenclature on the available tools for that axis of color adjustment.

LOL it may be different but different temps are associated with colors. Warmer colors are more yellow. Cooler are more blue.