White Balance - in the eye of the beholder?

I'd appreciate the views of the experts here about my White Balance problem.

Exhibit A is a pano shot in the Lake District. I shot RAW and sampled the white and grey clouds in several places using the eye-dropper tool in order to establish an appropriate White Balance. I'm pretty happy with the results.

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Sometimes "correct" just isn't "right." But also consider your angle. It's not the exact same shot. It's 2 different shots, and the sun is shooting through the clouds slightly different. And being at different times of the day (although slight) does have an impact. You also may not have sampled a perfectly white spot on one image or the other.

Too many variables.

if they are RAW why not play around with the white balance in PS until your satisfied...?!

cdifoto wrote in post #3323216
You also may not have sampled a perfectly white spot on one image or the other.

I actually sampled about a dozen white and grey spots in each image, noted what the colour temperature and tint were at each spot, and then manually set the colour temperature and tint to be the value which seemed most representative. (There generally wasn't much variation.) So I think I eliminated that variable pretty well.

bobinatcat wrote in post #3323260
if they are RAW why not play around with the white balance in PS until your satisfied...?!

Well, of course I could do that. But I'm satisfied with both of these images!

My question was about why my (seemingly) "scientific" process should come up with a WB that was "right" for each image but so different from the other one.

From my cursory glance at the two photos, it seems to me that the first photo has a red colour cast to the clouds. The clouds in the second picture appear more neutral to me.

For me, I just adjust the white balance until what I see on the screen matches my mental picture. This may be deliberately different from what it was in real life.

droiby wrote in post #3323478
From my cursory glance at the two photos, it seems to me that the first photo has a red colour cast to the clouds. The clouds in the second picture appear more neutral to me.

Hmmm. Thanks droiby. I couldn't see it myself, but I thought of a way of checking. I used the 'magic wand' tool to select most of the clouds, then copied them to a new layer and obtained a histogram for that layer.

Here's the result:

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StewartR wrote in post #3323573
Before I do: Can anyone suggest any improvements to my process for setting the WB?
(Let's assume for the moment that I can actually carry it out properly!)

Grey card.

cdifoto wrote in post #3323601
Grey card.

Doh.

You say that there isn't much change in the two shots because of the short lapse in time, but if you look at the shade from the clouds you can see that there is a big differnce, especially on the mountain. Also, you moved around the lake which would cause the angle of light to be different, possibly causing some differences as well.

This may sound odd but did you try sampling the lake? I had a few shots one time that had some color casts and when I sampled the water it removed my cast. It may work, it may not.

In2Photos wrote in post #3323626
This may sound odd but did you try sampling the lake? I had a few shots one time that had some color casts and when I sampled the water it removed my cast. It may work, it may not.

You're right. It does sound odd. But I'll give it a try. Can't hurt!

I tend to set the WB based on a gut feel. Although I could shoot with a gray card, I feel that it's redundant unless I need to nail the WB perfectly (which, for me, is hardly ever).

In PP, I might want to make it warmer/cooler than it actually was. Hence, I tend to dial in my WB manually (since I shoot in RAW).

If you really need to nail your WB (and you didn't shoot with a gray card), then you better hope you shot in RAW You can manually select a colour you know to be neutral and the RAW converter will adjust the WB accordingly.

If you didn't shoot RAW, then in photoshop, use the curves tool and use the grey point tool to select a neutral colour.

I'm amazed at how often and quickly the color temperature of daylight can change. I see your two shots as too red, and too yellow. But that's just me and my monitor. Have you ever stopped to think about all the variables? Sometimes I wonder if we humans even see the same colors. For example, if I were able to jump into your head, would red still look like the red I know, or would it look more like the green I'm used to? I never think of white balance as a way to get a shot to reveal "accurate" colors. Rather, I think of it as a way to get a shot close enough so that I can color correct it, if necessary, without too much trouble. And, I accept the idea that the end result is totally subjective.

droiby wrote in post #3323854
If you really need to nail your WB (and you didn't shoot with a gray card), then you better hope you shot in RAW You can manually select a colour you know to be neutral and the RAW converter will adjust the WB accordingly.

I didn't shoot with a grey card, so I have to fix the WB in PP. I don't really need to nail it, but I'd like to get it "right" (if there is such a thing as "right").

I described my technique/process earlier. In these pictures there aren't any objects that we know to be neutrally coloured, so I took about a dozen samples from the clouds and averaged the results. My concern is that that doesn't seem to be as reliable as I expected it would be.

VegasGeorge wrote in post #3324131
I'm amazed at how often and quickly the color temperature of daylight can change. I see your two shots as too red, and too yellow. But that's just me and my monitor. Have you ever stopped to think about all the variables? Sometimes I wonder if we humans even see the same colors. For example, if I were able to jump into your head, would red still look like the red I know, or would it look more like the green I'm used to? I never think of white balance as a way to get a shot to reveal "accurate" colors. Rather, I think of it as a way to get a shot close enough so that I can color correct it, if necessary, without too much trouble. And, I accept the idea that the end result is totally subjective.

After droiby suggested that the first one was too red, I think I confirmed that by looking at the histograms from the clouds. And here's the process repeated for the second one:

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