Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
The ability to set the white balance of your photographs is one of the most powerful tools available to digital photographers. White balance means setting the overall color balance of a photograph so that your subject will look natural, with the colors of objects in the photograph being close to what they look like on the real thing.
Why Is It Necessary?
Shouldn't a digital camera simply record colors as they are, without the need to adjust them? It would be great if they could, but they can't. The problem is that the color of anything that we look at is influenced by the color of the light that illuminates it. If the light is cool in color, your photograph will look blue; if the light is warm in color, your photograph will look red, yellow, or orange.
This is actually a problem that predates digital photography. Film manufacturers designed their color films to reproduce color accurately under normal mid-day daylight. When photographs were made under artificial lights, they had a strong color cast because artificial lights usually produce a different color of light than that produced by the sun.
We don't notice these color differences when we view the world through our own eyes because our brain can compensate for it, automatically setting the white balance of our eyes. Film doesn't have a brain; it records the actual color of the light that exposes it. Digital sensors also record the actual color of the light that hits the sensor. Because there is a computer inside a digital camera, there is an "Auto White Balance" mode, where the camera tries to compensate for the color of the light and give you a photograph with good color. As we'll see, this system is imperfect.
The photograph above was shot with ordinary incandescent household light bulbs. I adjusted its white balance to the correct values. Notice that the colored squares on the Xrite Colorchecker chart look natural. The grays and whites are neutral and the colors look normal. In actuality, incandescent bulbs produce very red light, as the example below shows.
This the uncorrected photograph, shot under incandescent light with my camera's white balance setting at "Daylight." This is what you would get shooting daylight-balanced color film with incandescent light. The colors are terrible. Everything has shifted to a strong reddish color balance.
What about the "Auto White Balance" mode; the one where the camera is supposed to set the white balance, as our brain does with our eyes? As you can see, it doesn't work too well! The results are better than the uncorrected version above, but the colors are still way off.
Are All Digital Cameras Like That?
These examples were made with a Canon 5DmkII. I have used several other digital cameras over the years, and my experience has been that the Auto White Balance mode on most digital cameras works fairly well under daylight; and works poorly under most artificial light sources such as incandescent bulbs, fluorescents, and LEDs.
That doesn't mean that you cannot photograph under these light sources. You can, and you can get beautiful color from them, if you know how to set the white balance for your photos. That's what this tutorial will show you.
Why Is It Necessary?
Shouldn't a digital camera simply record colors as they are, without the need to adjust them? It would be great if they could, but they can't. The problem is that the color of anything that we look at is influenced by the color of the light that illuminates it. If the light is cool in color, your photograph will look blue; if the light is warm in color, your photograph will look red, yellow, or orange.
This is actually a problem that predates digital photography. Film manufacturers designed their color films to reproduce color accurately under normal mid-day daylight. When photographs were made under artificial lights, they had a strong color cast because artificial lights usually produce a different color of light than that produced by the sun.
We don't notice these color differences when we view the world through our own eyes because our brain can compensate for it, automatically setting the white balance of our eyes. Film doesn't have a brain; it records the actual color of the light that exposes it. Digital sensors also record the actual color of the light that hits the sensor. Because there is a computer inside a digital camera, there is an "Auto White Balance" mode, where the camera tries to compensate for the color of the light and give you a photograph with good color. As we'll see, this system is imperfect.
The photograph above was shot with ordinary incandescent household light bulbs. I adjusted its white balance to the correct values. Notice that the colored squares on the Xrite Colorchecker chart look natural. The grays and whites are neutral and the colors look normal. In actuality, incandescent bulbs produce very red light, as the example below shows.
This the uncorrected photograph, shot under incandescent light with my camera's white balance setting at "Daylight." This is what you would get shooting daylight-balanced color film with incandescent light. The colors are terrible. Everything has shifted to a strong reddish color balance.
What about the "Auto White Balance" mode; the one where the camera is supposed to set the white balance, as our brain does with our eyes? As you can see, it doesn't work too well! The results are better than the uncorrected version above, but the colors are still way off.
Are All Digital Cameras Like That?
These examples were made with a Canon 5DmkII. I have used several other digital cameras over the years, and my experience has been that the Auto White Balance mode on most digital cameras works fairly well under daylight; and works poorly under most artificial light sources such as incandescent bulbs, fluorescents, and LEDs.
That doesn't mean that you cannot photograph under these light sources. You can, and you can get beautiful color from them, if you know how to set the white balance for your photos. That's what this tutorial will show you.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
White balance can be set in your camera before you take the picture, or it can be set later, when you edit the photograph on your computer.
If you shoot JPEGs, then you have to set the white balance on your camera (see discussion of White Balance Cards for how to do this). If you shoot RAW, then you have the freedom to choose when to set white balance. Even if you set it in the camera, a RAW file can have its color balance changed later, in post-processing, without losing image quality.
I strongly recommend shooting RAW and setting your white balance when you edit your photos. The procedure for setting the white balance on the camera accurately is cumbersome, and must be done anytime that the light changes. In addition, RAW files can be processed to recover highlight and shadow details that would be lost on a JPEG if you photograph in contrasty light.
I have a video tutorial on YouTube showing how to adjust white balance in post processing. It uses Lightroom CC, but the same tools are found in most RAW conversion software, including Photoshop, Capture One, and the software that camera makers include with their cameras.
White Balance Controls In Photo Editing Software
The screenshot below shows the white balance controls in Adobe Lightroom. Most photo editing programs have the same set of controls; so although I am using Lightroom for this tutorial, you should be able to use this information regardless of what software you use.
Presets
There is a drop-down menu with several presets to choose from. When you first open a file, it will default to "As Shot." If the colors in the photo look perfect on your screen, then you can leave it like this; the other white balance controls I'm going to discuss won't be needed.
Most of the time, however, the As Shot color will need changed to get proper white balance. There are presets for several different types of light, and an "Auto" setting.
If you choose Auto, then Lightroom will give you the white balance settings that it think are correct for the image. Basically the same thing as the Auto White Balance mode on your camera, though Lightroom's auto calculations often give different results than the camera's auto mode did.
I rarely use the presets in Lightroom for different light sources. The actual color of Daylight or a particular artificial light source can vary from the standards software companies used to create these presets, so they often give poor results.
The Eyedropper
The next tool looks like an Eyedropper. To use the eyedropper, you find something white or neutral gray ( a medium or light gray works best) in the photograph and click on it with the eyedropper. Lightroom then changes the white balance settings to make that thing you clicked on look perfectly neutral in tone, without a color cast. This works very well with some photographs, but there are a lot of things that can trip it up.
Many white or gray objects in the real world are not perfectly neutral in color. White and gray paints often have a subtle cool or warm tone to them. This will throw off the software's calculations. If you click on a cool white tone, then Lightroom will assume the light in the scene was cool and will warm everything up to compensate. This results in a picture that looks yellow or red! Clicking on a warm-toned white or gray results in a blue-tinted picture. Snow is an example of a white sublect that is not truly white. Snow usually has a cooler tint that our eyes do not perceive, and this results in a rendering of the overall photo that is too warm.
White Balance Sliders
Lastly, there are the fully-manual white balance controls: The sliders. You'll see that there are actually two sliders. The top one is labeled "Temp" and the other is labeled "Tint."
There are two color balances that have to be set to dial in your white balance. Temp, which controls "Color Temperature," corrects a photo that is too red or too blue. Tint corrects a photo that is too green or too magenta. There are also manual input boxes where you can type in exact numbers. These are useful if you use a Color Meter (more on that later).
When adjusting the sliders, it is usually best to start with the color temperature slider. Get the photo as close to perfect as you can with it, then adjust the green/magenta slider if necessary. The green/magenta slider will be especially important when photographing under fluorescent or LED lights, as these light sources are often too green. Increasing magenta corrects that issue.
If you shoot JPEGs, then you have to set the white balance on your camera (see discussion of White Balance Cards for how to do this). If you shoot RAW, then you have the freedom to choose when to set white balance. Even if you set it in the camera, a RAW file can have its color balance changed later, in post-processing, without losing image quality.
I strongly recommend shooting RAW and setting your white balance when you edit your photos. The procedure for setting the white balance on the camera accurately is cumbersome, and must be done anytime that the light changes. In addition, RAW files can be processed to recover highlight and shadow details that would be lost on a JPEG if you photograph in contrasty light.
I have a video tutorial on YouTube showing how to adjust white balance in post processing. It uses Lightroom CC, but the same tools are found in most RAW conversion software, including Photoshop, Capture One, and the software that camera makers include with their cameras.
White Balance Controls In Photo Editing Software
The screenshot below shows the white balance controls in Adobe Lightroom. Most photo editing programs have the same set of controls; so although I am using Lightroom for this tutorial, you should be able to use this information regardless of what software you use.
Presets
There is a drop-down menu with several presets to choose from. When you first open a file, it will default to "As Shot." If the colors in the photo look perfect on your screen, then you can leave it like this; the other white balance controls I'm going to discuss won't be needed.
Most of the time, however, the As Shot color will need changed to get proper white balance. There are presets for several different types of light, and an "Auto" setting.
If you choose Auto, then Lightroom will give you the white balance settings that it think are correct for the image. Basically the same thing as the Auto White Balance mode on your camera, though Lightroom's auto calculations often give different results than the camera's auto mode did.
I rarely use the presets in Lightroom for different light sources. The actual color of Daylight or a particular artificial light source can vary from the standards software companies used to create these presets, so they often give poor results.
The Eyedropper
The next tool looks like an Eyedropper. To use the eyedropper, you find something white or neutral gray ( a medium or light gray works best) in the photograph and click on it with the eyedropper. Lightroom then changes the white balance settings to make that thing you clicked on look perfectly neutral in tone, without a color cast. This works very well with some photographs, but there are a lot of things that can trip it up.
Many white or gray objects in the real world are not perfectly neutral in color. White and gray paints often have a subtle cool or warm tone to them. This will throw off the software's calculations. If you click on a cool white tone, then Lightroom will assume the light in the scene was cool and will warm everything up to compensate. This results in a picture that looks yellow or red! Clicking on a warm-toned white or gray results in a blue-tinted picture. Snow is an example of a white sublect that is not truly white. Snow usually has a cooler tint that our eyes do not perceive, and this results in a rendering of the overall photo that is too warm.
White Balance Sliders
Lastly, there are the fully-manual white balance controls: The sliders. You'll see that there are actually two sliders. The top one is labeled "Temp" and the other is labeled "Tint."
There are two color balances that have to be set to dial in your white balance. Temp, which controls "Color Temperature," corrects a photo that is too red or too blue. Tint corrects a photo that is too green or too magenta. There are also manual input boxes where you can type in exact numbers. These are useful if you use a Color Meter (more on that later).
When adjusting the sliders, it is usually best to start with the color temperature slider. Get the photo as close to perfect as you can with it, then adjust the green/magenta slider if necessary. The green/magenta slider will be especially important when photographing under fluorescent or LED lights, as these light sources are often too green. Increasing magenta corrects that issue.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Color Temperature
Why is the Warm/Cool color slider called "Color Temperature;" and why are the numbers expressed in "Degrees Kelvin?"
Before modern high-tech lights, such as fluorescents and LEDs, were invented, people lit the darkness by burning things like oil, natural gas, or candle wax. The old-fashioned incandescent light bulb works by passing electricity through a thin metal wire that gets hot enough to glow with light. These old tech light sources all work by converting heat energy into light. Another example would be a blacksmith heating up a piece of iron to such a high temperature that it begins to glow with light.
The color of light produced by burning or heating up a substance depends on the temperature of the fire or of the substance being heated. At relatively low temperatures, the light is red. As temperature increases, the light becomes cooler in tone. This seems counter-intuitive, since we usually associate warm colors with heat and cool colors with cold. Nonetheless, high temperatures produce blue light and low temperatures produce red light.
The Kelvin Scale
The color of light can thus be expressed as a measurement of the temperature needed to make light of that color. This is done using the "Kelvin" temperature scale. The Kelvin scale is the most logical temperature scale, because it has no "below zero" temperatures, unlike the Metric Celsius and the older Fahrenheit scales. The Kelvin scale begins at "Absolute Zero." This is the lowest possible temperature that can exist. At absolute zero, there is absolutely no energy present in a substance; all movement of subatomic particles stops at that temperature. Absolute Zero is -273.15° Celsius or -459.67° Fahrenheit. The Kelvin temperature scale is named for its inventor, British scientist William Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin.
The actual color of daylight varies depending on the weather, time of day, your location's elevation, and the part of the world where you are located. Films were made with the assumption that the color temperature of daylight was 5500° K. Incandescent bulbs vary in color temperature, but most household bulbs are between 2000° K and 3000° K. Halogen bulbs are usually around 3200° K. Because fluorescent and LED lights do not produce light through the release of heat energy, they do not have a true color temperature. Because of that, the color temperature setting that you would use to color-correct those lights is known as a "Correlated Color Temperature."
High color temperature light is rare with artificial lights, but common with daylight under certain conditions. On cloudy, overcast days the light is often between 6000° K and 7500° K. If you photograph in the shade on a sunny day, the light will often be quite cool, with color temperatures higher than 7500° K.
This photograph has good white balance. Notice that the gray and white squares on the Colorchecker are neutral toned, no color cast. The colors of the other squares are normal looking, as are the other objects in the photo.
This version is too red. To correct it, you would move the color temperature slider to a lower number.
This version is too blue. To correct it, move the color temperature slider to a higher number.
The Green/Magenta Scale
The Tint slider, which controls the green/magenta color correction, will not usually require strong corrections with daylight, halogen, or incandescent light. Some artificial light sources, such as fluorescent and LED lights, have a strong green cast to them. This control lets you correct for that. If the image is too green, you add magenta.
Again, here is our reference photo with perfect white balance. Compare it to the examples below.
This version is too green. Add magenta to neutralize this color cast.
This version is too magenta. Move the slider toward the green side to correct for this.
If all of this seems confusing and overwhelming, don't fear! Next, we'll look at white balance cards and other tools that let you get perfect color without having to decide how much to move the color sliders.
Why is the Warm/Cool color slider called "Color Temperature;" and why are the numbers expressed in "Degrees Kelvin?"
Before modern high-tech lights, such as fluorescents and LEDs, were invented, people lit the darkness by burning things like oil, natural gas, or candle wax. The old-fashioned incandescent light bulb works by passing electricity through a thin metal wire that gets hot enough to glow with light. These old tech light sources all work by converting heat energy into light. Another example would be a blacksmith heating up a piece of iron to such a high temperature that it begins to glow with light.
The color of light produced by burning or heating up a substance depends on the temperature of the fire or of the substance being heated. At relatively low temperatures, the light is red. As temperature increases, the light becomes cooler in tone. This seems counter-intuitive, since we usually associate warm colors with heat and cool colors with cold. Nonetheless, high temperatures produce blue light and low temperatures produce red light.
The Kelvin Scale
The color of light can thus be expressed as a measurement of the temperature needed to make light of that color. This is done using the "Kelvin" temperature scale. The Kelvin scale is the most logical temperature scale, because it has no "below zero" temperatures, unlike the Metric Celsius and the older Fahrenheit scales. The Kelvin scale begins at "Absolute Zero." This is the lowest possible temperature that can exist. At absolute zero, there is absolutely no energy present in a substance; all movement of subatomic particles stops at that temperature. Absolute Zero is -273.15° Celsius or -459.67° Fahrenheit. The Kelvin temperature scale is named for its inventor, British scientist William Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin.
The actual color of daylight varies depending on the weather, time of day, your location's elevation, and the part of the world where you are located. Films were made with the assumption that the color temperature of daylight was 5500° K. Incandescent bulbs vary in color temperature, but most household bulbs are between 2000° K and 3000° K. Halogen bulbs are usually around 3200° K. Because fluorescent and LED lights do not produce light through the release of heat energy, they do not have a true color temperature. Because of that, the color temperature setting that you would use to color-correct those lights is known as a "Correlated Color Temperature."
High color temperature light is rare with artificial lights, but common with daylight under certain conditions. On cloudy, overcast days the light is often between 6000° K and 7500° K. If you photograph in the shade on a sunny day, the light will often be quite cool, with color temperatures higher than 7500° K.
This photograph has good white balance. Notice that the gray and white squares on the Colorchecker are neutral toned, no color cast. The colors of the other squares are normal looking, as are the other objects in the photo.
This version is too red. To correct it, you would move the color temperature slider to a lower number.
This version is too blue. To correct it, move the color temperature slider to a higher number.
The Green/Magenta Scale
The Tint slider, which controls the green/magenta color correction, will not usually require strong corrections with daylight, halogen, or incandescent light. Some artificial light sources, such as fluorescent and LED lights, have a strong green cast to them. This control lets you correct for that. If the image is too green, you add magenta.
Again, here is our reference photo with perfect white balance. Compare it to the examples below.
This version is too green. Add magenta to neutralize this color cast.
This version is too magenta. Move the slider toward the green side to correct for this.
If all of this seems confusing and overwhelming, don't fear! Next, we'll look at white balance cards and other tools that let you get perfect color without having to decide how much to move the color sliders.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Earlier, I introduced the Eyedropper tool. This is found in most image editing software, and is used to set white balance by clicking on a white or neutral gray object in the photograph. The software adjusts the Color Temperature and Tint settings to make the object that you click on appear truly neutral. Unfortunately, this does not always work well because in the real world, many white and gray objects are not truly neutral.
White Balance Cards
The solution to the problem is to use a truly neutral substitute surface to base your white balance upon. Several companies manufacture gray cards, made of cardboard or plastic, that are claimed to be absolutely neutral in color. You photograph the card in the same light that as your subject. When you edit your photos, you open the one with the gray card first and use the eyedropper to set white balance by clicking on the card. The software will display the color temperature and tint settings it used, and you simply transfer those same numbers to the other photos you took of the scene.
White balance cards, and white balance filters like the Expodisc, can also be used to set white balance in-camera if you wish to do so. Most cameras have, buried in their menus, a mode for setting white balance from the last photo you took. The idea is you photograph a neutral white or gray surface, and the camera calculates the correct color temperature and green/magenta settings from it. If the neutral surface you photograph is truly neutral, and is illuminated by the same light that your subject will be illuminated by, then this works well. White balance cards provide the required neutral surface, but you need to photograph them up close to fill the frame for it to work.
These are some popular white balance cards. From left to right, they are: Kodak 18% Gray Card, Robin Myers Digital Gray Card, WhiBal G7, and an Xrite Colorchecker Passport. The round one is an Expodisc, which will be discussed below.
Kodak 18% Gray Card: This is a cardboard card with a neutral gray paper facing. It produces, in my experience, slightly warmer colors than the others. It is the least expensive of the cards I tested, but it is delicate. You can't take it out in the rain and it dirties quickly from fingerprints if you do not handle it carefully.
Robin Myers Digital Gray Card: Sadly, this one is no longer made. It was made of a plastic material whose color goes all the way through. Waterproof, and can be washed with soap and water if it gets dirty.
WhiBal G7: This plastic card is made by Michael Tapes Design. Like the Myers card, it is waterproof and can be washed if it gets dirty. The gray tone is coated on the surface, so be careful not to scratch it. At $30 it is a medium priced card, but produces excellent color balance. Made in several sizes.
Xrite Colorchecker Passport: This is both a white balance reference and a color chart. Made like a small pocket-sized plastic book, it has three pages. The two pages shown are the Colorchecker chart and White Balance Squares. The third page, not shown, is a large white balance card. I never use it, since the small white balance squares work just as well, and let me use the colorchart as a reference, too.
The Colorchecker Passport gave the absolute best color balance, though the difference between it and the WhiBal G7 are VERY subtle. The disadvantages of it are its very high cost and the fact that the colored and gray squares are painted paper. If you get it wet, you'll ruin it, and you cannot clean it if it gets a fingerprint or dirt on the colored squares.
Expodisc 2.0: The expodisc works differently than the cards. Instead of photographing it in your scene, you put it on the camera's lens, like a filter. Then, you stand at the subject position and point it at the place where you'll stand when you photograph the actual scene. You take a picture with the Expodisc on the lens, giving you a solid gray picture. You open this in your image editor and do the Eyedropper on it to get the color temperature and tint numbers to plug in to the photos you took.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this one. My Expodisc gives settings that produce a pronounced green color balance on my photos. At $50, it is fairly expensive. There are other "White Balance Caps" available, most less expensive than the Expodisc, which was the original. I have not tried any others.
Color Meters
A Color Meter is a specialized handheld light meter that measures the color of light.
Modern color meters read out the Color Temperature and a CC Filter value. The CC number is the same as the Tint value in Lightroom and Photoshop. These meters are called "Three Color Meters" because they have three sensors, one for each of the three primary colors of light (Red, Blue, and Green).
Older color meters are known as "Two Color Meters" because they only measure Red and Blue. These meters read out the Color Temperature, but do not give you a CC or Tint value. I would not buy one. All of them are now very old, are usually not accurate any more, and they do not read the green/magenta correction that you'll need as well as the color temp.
Some commonly seen color meters. The one on the left is an ancient Gossen Sixticolor. It is a two-color meter that was made from the 1960s until the 1980s. Mine is no longer accurate.
The Sekonic Prodigi Color C500 and Minolta Color Meter IIIF are both recent three-color meters, and both are also capable of measuring electronic flash.
The big one on the right is a Sekonic C-700 Spectromaster. It is a much more advanced meter that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera, instead of using ordinary lightmeter sensors filtered for the three primary colors. This allows it to break down the light to show the amount of light at each wavelength of visible light, showing it on a graph. Many modern lights, like Fluorescents and LEDs, have an unusual color spectrum with spikes in certain colors that make it difficult to get accurate color from then in photographs. In the photo above, you can see the spikes in the blues and yellows in the fluorescent light that I used to photograph the meters.
A color meter is used in much the same way that an incident light meter is used. You stand at the subject position and point the white diffuser back toward the camera position and take the reading. A modern digital color meter like the Minolta Color Meter II, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, Kenko-3100, Sekonic C500, and Sekonic C-700 will give you the color temperature and a CC number (for the green/magenta correction).
In your image editor, simply type in the color temp and tint numbers into the boxes next to the white balance sliders. That's it, you'll have correct color!
Color meters are convenient, and it is interesting to go around measuring different light sources and seeing how daylight's color changes in different weather and at different times of the day. That said, they are VERY expensive. Expect to pay around $800-$1500 for a new one. Used ones are cheaper but often need recalibrated, which costs about $100.
White Balance Cards
The solution to the problem is to use a truly neutral substitute surface to base your white balance upon. Several companies manufacture gray cards, made of cardboard or plastic, that are claimed to be absolutely neutral in color. You photograph the card in the same light that as your subject. When you edit your photos, you open the one with the gray card first and use the eyedropper to set white balance by clicking on the card. The software will display the color temperature and tint settings it used, and you simply transfer those same numbers to the other photos you took of the scene.
White balance cards, and white balance filters like the Expodisc, can also be used to set white balance in-camera if you wish to do so. Most cameras have, buried in their menus, a mode for setting white balance from the last photo you took. The idea is you photograph a neutral white or gray surface, and the camera calculates the correct color temperature and green/magenta settings from it. If the neutral surface you photograph is truly neutral, and is illuminated by the same light that your subject will be illuminated by, then this works well. White balance cards provide the required neutral surface, but you need to photograph them up close to fill the frame for it to work.
These are some popular white balance cards. From left to right, they are: Kodak 18% Gray Card, Robin Myers Digital Gray Card, WhiBal G7, and an Xrite Colorchecker Passport. The round one is an Expodisc, which will be discussed below.
Kodak 18% Gray Card: This is a cardboard card with a neutral gray paper facing. It produces, in my experience, slightly warmer colors than the others. It is the least expensive of the cards I tested, but it is delicate. You can't take it out in the rain and it dirties quickly from fingerprints if you do not handle it carefully.
Robin Myers Digital Gray Card: Sadly, this one is no longer made. It was made of a plastic material whose color goes all the way through. Waterproof, and can be washed with soap and water if it gets dirty.
WhiBal G7: This plastic card is made by Michael Tapes Design. Like the Myers card, it is waterproof and can be washed if it gets dirty. The gray tone is coated on the surface, so be careful not to scratch it. At $30 it is a medium priced card, but produces excellent color balance. Made in several sizes.
Xrite Colorchecker Passport: This is both a white balance reference and a color chart. Made like a small pocket-sized plastic book, it has three pages. The two pages shown are the Colorchecker chart and White Balance Squares. The third page, not shown, is a large white balance card. I never use it, since the small white balance squares work just as well, and let me use the colorchart as a reference, too.
The Colorchecker Passport gave the absolute best color balance, though the difference between it and the WhiBal G7 are VERY subtle. The disadvantages of it are its very high cost and the fact that the colored and gray squares are painted paper. If you get it wet, you'll ruin it, and you cannot clean it if it gets a fingerprint or dirt on the colored squares.
Expodisc 2.0: The expodisc works differently than the cards. Instead of photographing it in your scene, you put it on the camera's lens, like a filter. Then, you stand at the subject position and point it at the place where you'll stand when you photograph the actual scene. You take a picture with the Expodisc on the lens, giving you a solid gray picture. You open this in your image editor and do the Eyedropper on it to get the color temperature and tint numbers to plug in to the photos you took.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this one. My Expodisc gives settings that produce a pronounced green color balance on my photos. At $50, it is fairly expensive. There are other "White Balance Caps" available, most less expensive than the Expodisc, which was the original. I have not tried any others.
Color Meters
A Color Meter is a specialized handheld light meter that measures the color of light.
Modern color meters read out the Color Temperature and a CC Filter value. The CC number is the same as the Tint value in Lightroom and Photoshop. These meters are called "Three Color Meters" because they have three sensors, one for each of the three primary colors of light (Red, Blue, and Green).
Older color meters are known as "Two Color Meters" because they only measure Red and Blue. These meters read out the Color Temperature, but do not give you a CC or Tint value. I would not buy one. All of them are now very old, are usually not accurate any more, and they do not read the green/magenta correction that you'll need as well as the color temp.
Some commonly seen color meters. The one on the left is an ancient Gossen Sixticolor. It is a two-color meter that was made from the 1960s until the 1980s. Mine is no longer accurate.
The Sekonic Prodigi Color C500 and Minolta Color Meter IIIF are both recent three-color meters, and both are also capable of measuring electronic flash.
The big one on the right is a Sekonic C-700 Spectromaster. It is a much more advanced meter that uses a CMOS sensor, like a digital camera, instead of using ordinary lightmeter sensors filtered for the three primary colors. This allows it to break down the light to show the amount of light at each wavelength of visible light, showing it on a graph. Many modern lights, like Fluorescents and LEDs, have an unusual color spectrum with spikes in certain colors that make it difficult to get accurate color from then in photographs. In the photo above, you can see the spikes in the blues and yellows in the fluorescent light that I used to photograph the meters.
A color meter is used in much the same way that an incident light meter is used. You stand at the subject position and point the white diffuser back toward the camera position and take the reading. A modern digital color meter like the Minolta Color Meter II, Minolta Color Meter IIIF, Kenko-3100, Sekonic C500, and Sekonic C-700 will give you the color temperature and a CC number (for the green/magenta correction).
In your image editor, simply type in the color temp and tint numbers into the boxes next to the white balance sliders. That's it, you'll have correct color!
Color meters are convenient, and it is interesting to go around measuring different light sources and seeing how daylight's color changes in different weather and at different times of the day. That said, they are VERY expensive. Expect to pay around $800-$1500 for a new one. Used ones are cheaper but often need recalibrated, which costs about $100.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Conclusions and Recommendations
As I said on the first page of this tutorial, I recommend shooting RAW, not JPEG, and setting your white balance in your image editor. RAW gives better image quality, allows you to fine tune the white balance after you take the picture, and gives you the ability to recover highlight and shadow detail in high contrast scenes that is lost when you shoot JPEG files.
A good neutral white balance card like the WhiBal or the Colorchecker Passport is a great tool to help you nail the white balance, especially while you learn. Eventually, you'll be able to do it visually while you move the color temperature and tint sliders. Still, the white balance cards make life much easier, even for experienced photographers. Especially in difficult artificial lights, like LEDs and fluorescents.
Final Thoughts: Perfect Color Isn't Always The Right Color
The goal of white balancing is usually to produce neutral color rendering. That's what you'll get using a white balancing card or a color meter; and for most photographs, that is perfect. For some scenes, however, it is necessary to leave in some amount of a color cast to preserve the feeling of the original scene.
The scene above was shot at dusk; the sun had already dropped below the top of the building.
The version on the left has a color balance that is 'imperfect,' yet it is a more accurate rendering of the scene. The light was very blue in appearance, and I felt that I needed to preserve some of that blue cast to communicate the feeling of the time and place.
The version on the right was made with the white balance settings given by a color meter, the Sekonic C500. The whites look neutral. It is scientifically correct color, but it looks completely wrong! It feels like a photograph made during the day, rather than one shot in the last few minutes of daylight. The one on the left is the best rendering from an artistic standpoint.
The recommendations that you get from a gray card or a color meter should be treated as exactly that: recommendations, not requirements. You're the photographer, and the final color rendering in your photographs is up to you.
As I said on the first page of this tutorial, I recommend shooting RAW, not JPEG, and setting your white balance in your image editor. RAW gives better image quality, allows you to fine tune the white balance after you take the picture, and gives you the ability to recover highlight and shadow detail in high contrast scenes that is lost when you shoot JPEG files.
A good neutral white balance card like the WhiBal or the Colorchecker Passport is a great tool to help you nail the white balance, especially while you learn. Eventually, you'll be able to do it visually while you move the color temperature and tint sliders. Still, the white balance cards make life much easier, even for experienced photographers. Especially in difficult artificial lights, like LEDs and fluorescents.
Final Thoughts: Perfect Color Isn't Always The Right Color
The goal of white balancing is usually to produce neutral color rendering. That's what you'll get using a white balancing card or a color meter; and for most photographs, that is perfect. For some scenes, however, it is necessary to leave in some amount of a color cast to preserve the feeling of the original scene.
The scene above was shot at dusk; the sun had already dropped below the top of the building.
The version on the left has a color balance that is 'imperfect,' yet it is a more accurate rendering of the scene. The light was very blue in appearance, and I felt that I needed to preserve some of that blue cast to communicate the feeling of the time and place.
The version on the right was made with the white balance settings given by a color meter, the Sekonic C500. The whites look neutral. It is scientifically correct color, but it looks completely wrong! It feels like a photograph made during the day, rather than one shot in the last few minutes of daylight. The one on the left is the best rendering from an artistic standpoint.
The recommendations that you get from a gray card or a color meter should be treated as exactly that: recommendations, not requirements. You're the photographer, and the final color rendering in your photographs is up to you.
CMur12
Veteran
These are WONDERFUL tutorials, Chris - the very essence of the craft of photography, without which the art of photography is not possible. I thank you again for putting all of this information together and presenting it in such clear and well illustrated form.
I still haven't found my way to digital, but being an old slide shooter, constantly worrying about the warmth or coolness of light, I have seen white balance control as one of the great features of digital.
- Murray
I still haven't found my way to digital, but being an old slide shooter, constantly worrying about the warmth or coolness of light, I have seen white balance control as one of the great features of digital.
- Murray
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Thanks, Murray.
With film, you can shoot color negative film and get the benefits of adjusting white balance later in the printing process. I learned to print color negs in the darkroom back in high school. My teacher was the only high school photo teacher in the city teaching color printing!
With slides, people who were fanatical about color carried color meters and a big box of LB and CC filters. LB (light balance) filters were either orange or blue and corrected color temperature. CC (color compensating) filters were green or magenta and did what the Tint slider in Lightroom does.
In college, I thought it would be cool to buy a set of these filters and a color meter, but the meter back then was about $700 and the filters were really expensive. Individually, they were no more costly than any other filters, but you needed a large set of them to cover all possibilities!
Digital is nice because you have full control over the color balance without filters, and though I love my Sekonic C700, you do not need a color meter.
Ronald M
Veteran
Great explanation. Thanks.
I use Whi Bal Cards and take readings in shade, summer sun, winter sun, studio flash, portable flash. and then save them as presets in each camera.
Each time I come upon one of the above scenes, I revert to the preset. Normally close enough.
The exception comes up with Tiffin pola filters which turn all photos green so there are special summer sun presets I made with Whi Bal card and filter. Nikon has too many filter sizes to be buying special filters for all the lenses. Leica and B+W pola are a nice neutral grey and cause no issues. Tiffen I bought in 1964 and recently all have same issues.
I use Whi Bal Cards and take readings in shade, summer sun, winter sun, studio flash, portable flash. and then save them as presets in each camera.
Each time I come upon one of the above scenes, I revert to the preset. Normally close enough.
The exception comes up with Tiffin pola filters which turn all photos green so there are special summer sun presets I made with Whi Bal card and filter. Nikon has too many filter sizes to be buying special filters for all the lenses. Leica and B+W pola are a nice neutral grey and cause no issues. Tiffen I bought in 1964 and recently all have same issues.
charjohncarter
Veteran
I've been trying for years to get my friend to shoot RAW, now you did it with your excellent digital color review.
I think one constant with color is that it is especially, with digital, is trying to get consistent results. It seems sometimes you get the color close and then you end up making things worse with the final tweaks. I have a small job of photographing theater promos in my town. When shooting in light created with tungsten and then tungsten with color gels it gets very difficult. This is one that drove me nuts trying to get it even close:
Play Promo by John Carter, on Flickr
But the biggest inconsistents (for me) is scanning color negatives. I ended up using a positive scan but by limiting the RGB and overall histogram with Colton Allen's (Swift1 at RFF) method:
http://www.coltonallen.com/getting-the-most-from-color-negative-film-with-your-epson-flatbed/
And then using ColorPerfect to fine tune. It is a longer procedure but you get consistent results.
Thanks again for all the work you have done for RFF and me.
I think one constant with color is that it is especially, with digital, is trying to get consistent results. It seems sometimes you get the color close and then you end up making things worse with the final tweaks. I have a small job of photographing theater promos in my town. When shooting in light created with tungsten and then tungsten with color gels it gets very difficult. This is one that drove me nuts trying to get it even close:
Play Promo by John Carter, on FlickrBut the biggest inconsistents (for me) is scanning color negatives. I ended up using a positive scan but by limiting the RGB and overall histogram with Colton Allen's (Swift1 at RFF) method:
http://www.coltonallen.com/getting-the-most-from-color-negative-film-with-your-epson-flatbed/
And then using ColorPerfect to fine tune. It is a longer procedure but you get consistent results.
Thanks again for all the work you have done for RFF and me.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Theatre and (especially) rock concerts are just about the worst case scenarios possible for white balance, given the use of colored lights. Usually, I try to find something in the photo that is not lit by colored lights and balance for that, letting everything else fall where it will. If there's nothing like that in the photo, then just make it look pretty!I have a small job of photographing theater promos in my town. When shooting in light created with tungsten and then tungsten with color gels it gets very difficult. This is one that drove me nuts trying to get it even close:
I used to use a method for editing color neg scans similar to the Colton Allen method years ago, but sometime it would trip me up. One time, another photographer paid me to scan some color negs for him (this was before commercial photography had gone digital; people were shooting film then scanning it). I had never been to the place he had photographed, and that method had really messed up the colors, oversaturating them!
For most things, it worked well though. I usually shot slide film, because it was so much easier to scan. I wish Kodak or Fuji would have made a color neg film with a clear base; it would have fixed all the problems.
charjohncarter
Veteran
I wish Kodak or Fuji would have made a color neg film with a clear base; it would have fixed all the problems.
I've wondered why the didn't too. Maybe it has been a hold over from pre-scanning and post digital processing days.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
WB is very necessary for passport color checker photographer. But film and photography has no WB limits...
shimokita
白黒
A question about using the Sekonic C-500. The C-500 user manual writes:
When using "Digital" mode: The visual color temperature (displayed in K) of a scene based on the visual spectrum of the human eye or typical digital camera sensor. This measurement can be directly entered into the color temp setting of your digital camera.
When using "Film" mode: The photographic color temperature (displayed in K) of a scene based on the sensitivity of traditional film. The measured values are similar to other photographic color temperature meters.
The user manual seems to indicate that the measured value in Kelvin will be different depending on the selected mode (DIGI/FILM).
What is the difference in the two "different" measured values as displayed in K?
Casey
When using "Digital" mode: The visual color temperature (displayed in K) of a scene based on the visual spectrum of the human eye or typical digital camera sensor. This measurement can be directly entered into the color temp setting of your digital camera.
When using "Film" mode: The photographic color temperature (displayed in K) of a scene based on the sensitivity of traditional film. The measured values are similar to other photographic color temperature meters.
The user manual seems to indicate that the measured value in Kelvin will be different depending on the selected mode (DIGI/FILM).
What is the difference in the two "different" measured values as displayed in K?
Casey
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Casey,
I think I am going to write a Color Meter tutorial this week. Here's the short answer to your question:
Sekonic is the only company that has made color meters with a Film Mode and a Digital Mode, and the instructions for those meters (both the C500 and the C700) are not very helpful in telling what they do. I had to figure out what I am telling you from experimenting with my meters.
Yes, the film mode and digital mode will give different readings. Both the Color Temperature and the CC reading will be different. In some cases the readings may differ by quite a lot, a few hundred Degrees Kelvin.
So which is right? The instructions indicate to use the Digital Mode readings when shooting a digital camera and the Film Mode readings when shooting film. Sounds logical. BUT Here's what my experience is:
Digital Mode:
Use this when you are going to set the white balance on your camera. Most Digital SLR and Mirrorless cameras, and some point and shoots, let you set both the color temperature and the CC value manually.
I have found that when I do this, the pictures, when I shoot RAW (as I always do), look perfect when I open them in Lightroom or Canon's RAW software (Digital Photo Professional 4. I am using a Canon 5DmkII).
BUT, if I don't set white balance in the camera, and instead write down the setting the meter gave and input it later when processing the RAW file....then there are problems. The Meter's Digital Mode readings do work when I manually input them in Canons DPP-4 software. They do NOT work in Lightroom! If I input the meter's readings from the Digital Mode in Lightroom, the color is incorrect!
Film Mode:
If I take readings with one of the Sekonic meters in the Film Mode and put them into the camera, or in Canon's software, the color comes out incorrect. Well, that makes sense; it is FILM mode. But what if we input those Film Mode readings into Lightroom?
Remember that the Digital Mode readings did not give good color when entered directly into Lightroom. The Film Mode readings, however, do (usually) give perfect color in Lightroom!
I also have a Minolta Color Meter IIIF, and its readings match closely to the two Sekonic meters when the Sekonics are set to their Film Mode. The Minolta does not have separate modes for film and digital. It just gives one reading and that happens to match the film mode on the two Sekonic meters. Just like with the Sekonics, the Minolta readings are wrong when entered into the camera (and Canon's software) but good when entered into Lightroom!
Camera vs Software
I have noticed that when I open a photo in Lightroom that I shot by manually setting the White Balance on the camera, the Color Temperature and Tint values shown in Lightroom are DIFFERENT than what I entered in the camera. The colors are accurate, but the numbers are different.
I've done a bunch of research, and Adobe seems to use a different set of values for the numbers than the cameras do. This seems to be true with Capture One and some other RAW conversion software I have tried. The Sekonic meters in Film Mode, and the older Minolta meter I have, seem keyed to this calibration, while the Sekonic meters in Digital Mode seem calibrated to the cameras.
Confused yet?
This is why I think I need to do a separate tutorial on this. It needs more depth than I can give you in this quick response typed late at night
I actually went to the trouble of doing hundreds of test shots at the different color temp settings on my camera and seeing what those numbers shows as in Lightroom.
I May Be Wrong For Other Cameras!
Keep in mind that the only digital camera I own is the Canon 5dMII I have owned for many years. I need to try this all with another brand of camera and see if it is true for others besides Canon. It probably is, but I may be wrong!
shimokita
白黒
Thanks for the long reply Chris...
In the 60s I used a Gossen Sixticolor when shooting Kodachrome and even though it it was limited to two channels it was better than nothing ; ). I have a set of Kenko Light Balance (LB) filters (W2, W4, W10, W12 and C2, C4) which seems to cover most basic situations... for the most part I let the color correction (CC) slide. Currently using a Kenko KCM-3100 as the Sekonic C-500 is out of production and the C-700 is too expensive.
... it doesn't surprise me that different software and/or different brands of cameras use the information differently and/or use different information. I shoot with the Canon 5D MII and use DPP. With the Fuji x100t I am using an early / limited version of SilkyPix. With the Kenko KCM-3100 you need to specify the type of film (e.g. Daylight) so it seems clear (to me) that different CC filters would be recommended given the film base Kelvin vs. actual Kelvin. But I don't get why the measured Kelvin would be different...
Like you I have done some testing, in my case with mixed (poor) results. But it's an area that I am interested it...
Looking forward to any write-up you do... Thanks again...
In the 60s I used a Gossen Sixticolor when shooting Kodachrome and even though it it was limited to two channels it was better than nothing ; ). I have a set of Kenko Light Balance (LB) filters (W2, W4, W10, W12 and C2, C4) which seems to cover most basic situations... for the most part I let the color correction (CC) slide. Currently using a Kenko KCM-3100 as the Sekonic C-500 is out of production and the C-700 is too expensive.
... it doesn't surprise me that different software and/or different brands of cameras use the information differently and/or use different information. I shoot with the Canon 5D MII and use DPP. With the Fuji x100t I am using an early / limited version of SilkyPix. With the Kenko KCM-3100 you need to specify the type of film (e.g. Daylight) so it seems clear (to me) that different CC filters would be recommended given the film base Kelvin vs. actual Kelvin. But I don't get why the measured Kelvin would be different...
Like you I have done some testing, in my case with mixed (poor) results. But it's an area that I am interested it...
Looking forward to any write-up you do... Thanks again...
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
The old Sixticolor worked great in Daylight, or with Tungsten or Halogen lights; those light sources rarely need any Magenta/Green correction, so just adjusting for color temperature alone works perfectly well. As long as you avoid LED or Fluorescent lights.
Your Kenko KCM-3100 is actually the same meter as my old Minolta Color Meter IIIF. When Minolta stopped making light meters, they sold the designs to Kenko. Kenko changed the external appearance a little, but the insides remained identical. This is also true of the exposure meters Minolta was making at the end, the Flash Meter VI and Autometer VF. Kenko makes them now, too.
If you're using your Kenko color meter for digital, what you want to do is write down the readings it gives and then enter them into your RAW editing software later when you process the files. I have tried this with my Minolta Color Meter IIIF using Lightroom, Capture One, and Photoshop Camera RAW, and it will probably work for most other RAW software too. If you enter the readings from your meter into your camera's white balance settings, the color will probably be wrong.
Tim Murphy
Well-known
Thank you Chris!
Thank you Chris!
Dear Chris,
I just wanted to thank you for sharing your tutorials with the people at RFF.
I have read them as they appeared, and will continue to refer to them going forward. If I follow them I am certain I will be able to improve my photos.
I do have one question regarding white balance though. Does it make a difference if the WB is adjusted while post processing a RAW file instead of shooting it at the correct WB at the start? I ask because I have a color temperature reading on the Light Meter app on my phone and I often record the reading for a scene and shoot the scene with the camera's auto WB setting. I adjust to the recorded temperature when processing the RAW file and the colors definitely improve, but I am wondering if I am missing anything by not setting the WB at the start?
Thanks again and Happy New Year!
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg, PA
Thank you Chris!
Dear Chris,
I just wanted to thank you for sharing your tutorials with the people at RFF.
I have read them as they appeared, and will continue to refer to them going forward. If I follow them I am certain I will be able to improve my photos.
I do have one question regarding white balance though. Does it make a difference if the WB is adjusted while post processing a RAW file instead of shooting it at the correct WB at the start? I ask because I have a color temperature reading on the Light Meter app on my phone and I often record the reading for a scene and shoot the scene with the camera's auto WB setting. I adjust to the recorded temperature when processing the RAW file and the colors definitely improve, but I am wondering if I am missing anything by not setting the WB at the start?
Thanks again and Happy New Year!
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg, PA
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Tim,
I'm glad my articles are helpful for you.
There is no advantage to entering the white balance settings into your camera vs. doing it later when processing the files.
See my replies to Casey above, though. Most color meters seem to be accurate for entering the white balance in post processing, and may give inaccurate color when the readings are used to set the camera. Others, like the Sekonic meters in "Digital Mode" are calibrated to be accurate for setting the camera's white balance, not for entering the numbers into your RAW software.
Try both ways and see what gives the best color with your meter/camera/software combination.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I have just posted my Color Meters Tutorial