WB/Colour Help Pls

Looking for feedback/assistance with exposure, white balance and colour specifically. I've reworked this a few times. It still seems off.

The white I'm using as a reference point is Wild Fire's shoulder, where it's the brightest white between his collar and hoodie. Going for a nice Tide white if that helps.

Couple of things:
- White balance: how do you set this properly without a grey card? AWB seems to struggle with autum foliage. LR6 auto WB deviates blue temp 3900 tint 0 vs temp 5000 tint +15 I settled on. The dropper deviates green. I'm particularly bad at judging "correct" WB.
- Colour: how much vibrance/saturation is enough? How much is too much? Subjective I know but I'm going for just slightly more vibrant than being there. ie I want a good picture without crossing into overprocessing territory, not necessarily a 100% accurate representation.
- I think I over exposed in camera (using auto ISO). See before/after
- Anyone else notice how washed out 5D4 raw files are compared to 5D3? Might be LR6 not sure.
- Messed up focus & recompose. AF point was initially on his eye. Slipped, hit AF ON and focused on his collar. Sharpened his eye with an adj brush.
- Hairy bokeh... not the right lens for the job but it's what I had
- Not worried about composition, just exposure, WB & colour

raw file here if anyone wants to take a shot at it.
https://drive.google.c​om …CSIRwQNNYUVI9?u​sp=sharing

Appreciate the help. Thanks.

1. Processed image

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …183940146@N04/5​0496112541

Hoodie

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …183940146@N04/5​0495407198

LR6 before after

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …183940146@N04/5​0496112711

lr6settings

It looks pretty good to me. However, I admit that I am not as persnickety as others about white balance. The scene overall is warm. But there are a lot of autumn leaves in it.

I am at a loss to suggest why the raw shot was overexposed. There doesn't seem to be anything in the scene that would bias the camera's light meter. Were you shooting in manual? The raw images that I have seen tend to have subdued contrast. I think you did a good job of punching it up.

I like your interpretation very much. Here is a slightly different take. I don't use Lightroom, I use DXO Photolab 3. I took down the highlights slightly and added a bit of vibrancy, cloned out the leash and added a vignette.

I took a shot at it without reference to your picture and came up with a nearly identical result. I'd post it, but no point, looks just like yours. I think these things you ask about are partly subjective, not the WB perhaps, but even that you can tinker with. I just used the daylight WB setting, the wb chosen by your camera seemed a little on the cool side. My rule in editing is to make the photo look better, in whatever way is needed, but not to do so much that the picture looks like it has been edited, if that makes sense.

Edit - what the heck, here it is. edited in capture one. the red is the tiniest bit redder.

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback.

joedlh wrote in post #19140008
I am at a loss to suggest why the raw shot was overexposed. There doesn't seem to be anything in the scene that would bias the camera's light meter. Were you shooting in manual?

Manual, auto ISO. I normally dial in ISO but the light was changing and our dog wouldn't stay still. I usually meter on the brightest part of his coat, recompose to place the selected AF point on his eye and take the shot. I think the center point landed on, and metered off, the green foliage in the background.

rrblint wrote in post #19140275
Here is a slightly different take. I don't use Lightroom, I use DXO Photolab 3. I took down the highlights slightly and added a bit of vibrancy, cloned out the leash and added a vignette.

Hosted photo: posted by rrblint in
./showthread.php?p=191​40275&i=i205210320
forum: Critique Corner

Nice. Cloning out the leash looks great.

patrick j wrote in post #19140287
I took a shot at it without reference to your picture and came up with a nearly identical result. I'd post it, but no point, looks just like yours. I think these things you ask about are partly subjective, not the WB perhaps, but even that you can tinker with. I just used the daylight WB setting, the wb chosen by your camera seemed a little on the cool side. My rule in editing is to make the photo look better, in whatever way is needed, but not to do so much that the picture looks like it has been edited, if that makes sense.

Edit - what the heck, here it is. edited in capture one. the red is the tiniest bit redder.

Hosted photo: posted by patrick j in
./showthread.php?p=191​40287&i=i151273820
forum: Critique Corner

Looks really good as well.

Funny thing is only you really know what is right. White balance changes through out the day... and the type of coverage you have (clouds, canopy, etc).... so its what is right to you based on what you saw when you took the image, or the look you are trying to achieve. So there is no definitive right.

It does seem like in processing the luminance of the reds has been flattened some. I see you used the "exposure" slider. I really avoid using it because it moves all values... and some of these colors didn't need dropping, at least as much as they were. Use the individual color channels instead. Or just lower highlights rather than the entire image together.

I also would avoid gong to heavy with vibrance. It is very common to see it get over used to create a false "pop" to an image, giving them a post card like processing. It should be dozens of very small adjustments, and avoid relying on using heavy handed tools like Vibrance, Contrast and Exposure. That way you can do things like bring up whites, and yet lower highlights.

Just my two cents. Less is better. Lower your darks and mid tones.... not everything together.