Advice for White Balance please!!

hey guys

in Photoshop CS3 (raw file), I'm using the white balance tool and I'm trying to get a proper white balance for this photograph.

The one that I used the WB tool on the wall, I feel like it has a blue tint to the photograph, but for the WB tool that I've used on the curtains, I feel like there's too much natural light for an indoor shot.

What do you think is more appropriate?

1st picture, WB tool on the curtains
2nd picture, WB tool on the wall.

Also, I feel (in my opinion) that this is cropped pretty good. But what would you guys do?

Feel free to edit them if you like.

Thank you guys very much!!

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Yes, your result is somewhat cool but its all a matter of taste. You'd get a warmer WB if you clicked on the grey portion of the sleeve of the boy in red. Then if you think its still too warm move the Tint slider slightly to the left until you're satisfied.

In their books on Adobe Camera Raw, Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe advise using the WB tool in ACR as only a starting point. I agree. Set WB in ACR either way, then open the image in Photoshop and set white point and black point using either levels or curves.

Here's how I set them (but you can experiment with different values). At 194.194.194, some highlight were clipped, such as the whites in the striped shirt, and the boy's hand on the shoulder. I painted over those on the layer mask.

Those skin tones are still off, IMO. I would not use a painted wall or vertical blinds as my whitepoint reference. They are notoriously off-white.

The white shairt or the plastic bag might be better candidates. However, you can adjust to eye in ACR or with a Color Balance adjustment layer in Photoshop, if none of the candidates is white.

With this photograph, you've got to get the skin tones right. Asians do not generally have ruddy skin tones.

Cheers,

Mitch

Cheers,

Mitch

if there isnt anything else, i usually click the white of the eye to give me a base

in this case i noticed the white label at the bottom of the photo, this was facing towards the flash, so i used that instead..

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Yes, a much better result!

Mitch