How do you white balance?

[KenRC51]

I know for some of you guys its really easy to white balance. For me its easy only when I am indoor where the light is consistence (wedding). I use a whibal card and there it goes.

What about outdoors? Since there are so many inconsistency light in a big surrounding how do you guys keep up with the white balance? I don't want to take a shot of my whibal card every time I change position.

What I been doing for outdoor white balance is just eying it on LR3. I have a IPS monitor and Spyder3 calibrator so I know what I see on my screen is color correct.

I want to know what are your process in white balancing in outdoors and indoors. Thanks

[RichardTaylor]

I am just a hobbyist, and shoot RAW, and correct when post processing.

[KenRC51]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

I am just a hobbyist, and shoot RAW, and correct when post processing.

All my shots are shot in RAW but what are you process in white balance?

[Tzetsin]

If you are using lightroom, the white balance slider has an eye dropper tool that you can use to click on something that you know should be neutral. That usually gives some pretty accurate results, which can then be manually fine tuned.

My general rule is auto indoors, then the shadow setting for outdoors. This makes all my outdoor images pretty yellowy though, which is usually what I want as I shoot a great number of landscapes in the morning and evening.

either way though, no white balance is permanent with raw, so adjusting in lightroom is a snap. you can even just use the presets in lightroom to see which would have been good for that situation. (which then can be finetuned if needed)

[Ett]

Yeah, I do my white balance according to the presets the camera has - those are usually pretty close - and then I just fine tune it from there. Like Richard, I shoot in RAW, so at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter because I can just fix the white balance in Lightroom later anyway.

I'd REALLY like to start custom white balancing according to temperature, though. I'd love to be able to say "Yeah, somewhere around 6670K should be about right". That's the plan. With lots of practice, I think that you could get really close every time, which I like.

But like I said, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if you shoot RAW. You can set your white balance to 4000K in a place where 8330K is needed, and still just fix it in post.

[RichardTaylor]

Edit: Written approx the same time as the posts above.


In light room.
I place the white balance "eyedropper" on an area that is supposed to be grey, or white that is not over exposed, and "click it". If I don't have a suitable area to sample I will run through the presets and see how they look and possibly tweak it a little.

[KenRC51]

I get what most of you are trying to saw and that is what I've been doing. I want my shot to looks like I shot a picture of my whibal card before the real shot.

I know about whet whitebalance dropper in lr3 also but that only works if I click on a natural color which is the white balance card. How about situation where you don't have a white balance card?

I still get my white balance pretty accurate without the card but I like to know if there is a easier and more accurate way of doing it?

[KenRC51]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

Edit: Written approx the same time as the posts above.


In light room.
I place the white balance "eyedropper" on an area that is supposed to be grey, or white that is not over exposed, and "click it". If I don't have a suitable area to sample I will run through the presets and see how they look and possibly tweak it a little.

Oh I see, that is what I do. Thanks for reassuring that what I do is not incorrect.

[Ett]

Originally Posted by KenRC51

How about situation where you don't have a white balance card?

I still get my white balance pretty accurate without the card but I like to know if there is a easier and more accurate way of doing it?

How about you just adjust it to what looks right? I don't ever use a grey card to help me get the right white balance. Not ever. Just set it to what looks right and shoot. Photography isn't science, it's art

[KenRC51]

Originally Posted by Ett

How about you just adjust it to what looks right? I don't ever use a grey card to help me get the right white balance. Not ever. Just set it to what looks right and shoot. Photography isn't science, it's art

I always adjust it to my liking. I just like to know how others are doing it since most of my friends aren't into photography and I can't ask them about their post processing.