White Balance Correction using Color Cecker?

Hi,
I have been looking at a number white balance cards and also at cards used for color correction cards, such as "Color Checker White Balance 18% Gray Card 16:9 format" (see http://cgi.ebay.com/Color-Checker-White-Balance-18-Gray-Card-16-9-format-/150465 201169?pt=LHDefaultDomain0&hash=item23086cc411). Is there a way of using these cards (automatically) for color correction when importing images or using a not too time-consuming process after the import?
Thanks!

I've the x-rite passport and I can say only a thing:
Color correction seems to be an opinion!
With Aperture (and Canon RAW) with only white balance you will get an image very very close to the result with x-rite calibrated DNG and Adobe Camera Raw, but...
In both case Colors are very outside of reality!
Adobe Camera RAW and Canon DPP give other different "crazy opinion" on blues reds and greens, and the only program that I found go very closer to reality seems to be CaptureOne.
In my tests I've used two 5600°K Bowens lights to take a photo of x-rite passport and I've tried to compare it with the official datasheets from xrite:
http://xritephoto.com/phproductoverview.aspx?ID=1257&Action=Support&SupportID=5159
Seems very difficult to get real colors from the same RAW file, and every software give a personal opinion from the same data (?!)

Similar Messages

Loss of white balance correction

I just returned from a dive trip. In addition to cropping, adjusting the exposure and cropping, I use the white balance feature to correct the color of photos taken without a flash at depth. I uploaded my cards to my MacBook Pro (both the laptop and my Mac Pro are running Aperture 2.1.3), and edited these images. When I got home, I exported the project (like I always do), and imported it into my main Aperture library on my Mac Pro.
When I review these images, the color-corrected previews are seen in the Browser. When I click on an image, the color-corrected preview is shown in full size on my second, 30" Cinema Display while the RAW image is loading. However, once the full image is loaded, the white balance reverts to the original - but the levels and cropping are maintained! I can re-do the white balance correction, but once I quit and restart Aperture again, the white balance correction is again lost - but not my other edits! Thus, not only were the white balance corrections done on my laptop lost when I exported/imported the project, the repeat corrections done on my MacPro are lost when I quit and restart Aperture.
Curiously, after I've re-done the white balance on several images and quit, when I restart Aperture there is no indication that there are any images or projects that haven't been backed up in a vault.
This has never happened before when I would import a project; the last time I successfully imported a project with all of its adjustments maintained was February (I don't recall when 2.1.3 came out). I've searched this forum to no avail; has anyone else experienced this?

I've the x-rite passport and I can say only a thing:
Color correction seems to be an opinion!
With Aperture (and Canon RAW) with only white balance you will get an image very very close to the result with x-rite calibrated DNG and Adobe Camera Raw, but...
In both case Colors are very outside of reality!
Adobe Camera RAW and Canon DPP give other different "crazy opinion" on blues reds and greens, and the only program that I found go very closer to reality seems to be CaptureOne.
In my tests I've used two 5600°K Bowens lights to take a photo of x-rite passport and I've tried to compare it with the official datasheets from xrite:
http://xritephoto.com/phproductoverview.aspx?ID=1257&Action=Support&SupportID=5159
Seems very difficult to get real colors from the same RAW file, and every software give a personal opinion from the same data (?!)

Cannot get white-balance correction to work

I have some diving video that needs white balance correction. I am trying out the PE11 trial.
I've tried smart-fix as well as the 3-way correction tool. I've used the dropper to select something that should be white, but it makes little to no difference.
Any ideas why ?

As an experiment I went for another dive today, this time taking the same camera (Canon S110 with underwater white balance mode active) as well as a GoPro with a red filter. The video from the GoPro seems to have much more colour in it so I think it's a case of the Canon not capturing as much of that spectrum. I'll do another dive tomorrow and manually set the white balance to see if it makes any difference. I'm so use to shooting on the GoPro that I was surprised by the reduced colour in the Canon.
Is there any way to determine how much of red / green / blue is available in the video using PE11 ?
Thanks for the reply.

White Balance Correction

Hi all,
This might be a question which is too "simple" for Aperture but here goes...
I am used to using Adobe or Nikon products to edit my RAW images, in those apps you could change white balance as if you were in camera (ie: daylight, shade, flash etc...). In Aperture it seems the only way I can adjust white balance is to click somewhere in the image which is white, is this correct?
Appreciate it.
MBP 15'' 2.16 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I think it what would put Aperture in a
better position would be to use the same system as
the competition
How can Aperture surpass the competition by copying them? The current system is workable for saving presets. I am looking for something much better out of Apple in the next revision of Aperture than just 'copying' the competition.
Aperture is innovative and ground-breaking software in many areas. We will have to wait a bit longer for them to fill in some weaker spots in a application.

Flickering White Balance Correction

Hi,
I did a shot with a Nikon D90 moving through a subway tunnel, and the White Balance keeps oscilating slightly from warm to cool. Can I use some sort of temporal WB correction to deal with this problem, without keyframing the whole thing?
Regards,
Bogdan

Not sure if WB Effect is an "auto" Effect, but you might want to look at Keyframing one of the other CC Effects. About all of the Auto Effects are nearly useless. Some, like Shadow & Highlight can have the Auto turned OFF. I use S & H often, but NEVER on Auto.
Just do not know about WB Effect.
Good luck,
Hunt
PS - welcome to the Forum

How can I turn off Automatic White Balance/Correction?

Hi,
I shoot color Infra-Red images. White Balance is handled in Camera - and then in Photoshop. As a new user to Lightroom 2 - everytime I view/click on an image in the Library - the color/balance of the image changes to a deep red, and I lose all of the vivid colors that I had from the original image. The files are Nikon NEF RAW - and I am looking for a way to turn this automatic change in colors off. Can anyone help?
Thanks and have a great weekend !!!
Dave

Hal,
I have a Nikon D-70 that has the Lifepixel infra-red conversion. Take a look at their website and you can see the great color infra-red pictures that you can take with this converted camera. So there is my problem - I can set the camera at a PRE White-Balance and shoot Cyan/Blue/Green photos - and then import them into Lightroom. I see the photos in the Library - but as I click on them to view them, they change color to Red. Now if I set up the camera to take White Balance as Auto - or pretty much anything else other than the PRE (for which I can adjust), I will also get a Red photo. Red is OK if you want to convert to B+W - but if you want to retain all of the colors, I need to keep the color that the camera shot - without Lightroom changing them. I looked at the history - and only have an import/date. Other than clicking on it to view - no changes have been applied by me - yet. I will try to shoot them as jpg's - the ones I am working with right now were shot in the summer. We have -20 Deg. C. here right now - so Infra Red camera is in bag - have no green leaves to shoot. Looking through preferences and settings to see if I can find a "turn-off"....... Actually - let me load the photos with Bridge and see what they look like there..........
Dave

Newbie Problem, White edges when using colors?

Hi, I am new to illustrator, and this problem has been bothering me forever. I have googled beyond belief, but no answer. Maybe I am using the wrong terminology? Not sure. But overall, when I create things in illustrator, and use color, there are white edges around everything. Example below.
Also the colors I choose don't seem to be the ones that show up. Like, for the example above, I chose a deeper purple, but a lighter purple came out. I guess illustrator is A LOT different than photoshop.

well, i recently had something like that too.
I just couldnt figure out why it was showing up.
Untill i began looking at the layers.
It seemed that somehow some layers got duplicated and stuff.
So i recommend that you have a look at your layers and check for unwanted duplicates.

PE White Balance for separate color tables

I'm trying to use 24-patch color checker. I already have image collected. But they are not exactly 6500K and 2850K. Can I use the images to create separate color tables ?

Yes, you can. It is fine if the numbers don't match, as long as they are reasonably close (e.g., for 6500 it's fine if your image is in the 5000 to 7500 range).

Lens Profile Tool Addition – White Balance Offset Correction

I have noticed that my Canon 17-40mm and 70-200mm F4 IS lenses have virtually identical color temperature and can use the same white balance setting. My Sigma 50mm F2.8 Macro lens is another story, requiring almost 200K and +15 change to White Balance sliders. I am sure there are cases where Canon’s lenses will differ more widely and exhibit a similar degree of white balance differences, not to mention use of UV or 1B protection filters. An 85mm F1.2 lens using “rare earth” low dispersion glass, will have a warmer color temperature than a lens using more common glass elements.
I use the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport to create custom profiles for each of my camera bodies. I typically make separate correction presets for Daylight, Cloudy, and Tungsten (2700K). This requires changing the LR White Balance sliders to obtain “neutral gray in the ColorChecker image files shot in each of above described lighting conditions. It does not appear necessary to create a separate ColorChecker camera profile for each lens, just correction to the LR white balance slider settings.
I did some measurements of change in camera profile for Sunny Daylight (~5,500K), Cloudy (8,000K+), and Tungsten (~2,900K) lighting. There was no measurable change in rendering of the ColorChecker Passport images for the extreme Sunny to Cloudy conditions, and only very slight changewhen comparing the Tungsten profile. This was done by loading a ColorChecker Passport image file and applying alternate profiles:
EXAMPLE:
Open a DaylightColorChecker Passport image file in LR, apply Cloudy Camera Profile, and adjust White Balance for the gray scale patches using the Eyedropper Tool. Then look at the 'Before' and 'After' images....you will see NO visual change to any of the color patches. I saw only a very slight change when doing this with the Daylight to Tungsten (artificial light source) comparison.
The relatively small change in color balance between lenses (~500K max.) should have no measurable or visible affect to the ColorChecker Passport created "Camera Profile." The ColorChecker Passport or any other "Camera Profile" creation tool is first and foremost correcting for differences in the camera's image sensor color rendering.
SUGGESTION:
Since this white balance difference is a factor of the lens, it would be very convenient to add another tool in Lightroom's and Camera Raw Lens Profile panel for “White Balance Offset.” This allows setup of LR defaults for one specific lens type, such as your most used lens. Then you use the new ‘Lens Profile’ located ‘White Balance Offset’ correction tool to adjust white balance for all of your other lenses. In addition, Adobe or camera manufacturers could also provide the 'White Balance Offset Correction' as a function of the lens spectral response deviation from linear. This would provide a "uniform method" of calculating and adding the White Balance correction to the 'Lens Profile.' Since this is a factor of the lens only, the “lens offset correction” can be used with ANY lens/camera body pairing, The current LR and Camera Raw White Balance settings are then only used for “Global” correction of lighting conditions, and NOT for lens differences.
This is a linear mathematical function,which should be extremely easy for Adobe to add the ‘White Balance Offset’ correction feature to LR’s and Camera Raw's Lens Profile GUI. Just like many other tools in LR that some don't use, you can choose to use it or not!

Interesting suggestion. Thanks. -Simon

Correct white balance

I just join new job. They taped big project with white wall. Three cameras. Two of them are same and one new camera. I am not sure which camcorders but I see those two cameras are apparently off white balance (slight yellow) while new camera show look great. I am not familiar with color corrections. It got me confused which ones that I should adjust for white balance correction like level controls highlighs mids blacks, color balance, color controls.. all those... not sure which is good to correct white balance. Hope that I am able to match with one look so white and great colors.

Try the Magic Wand.
Turn the CC to Visual mode, that's where you see the colour wheels.
At about seven o'clock on the Balance wheel is a little eye dropper.
Here's how to do it:
Have the clip edited into the Timeline then place your playhead over that clip.
Open this clip (the one in the Timeline that needs to be corrected) into the Viewer. Okay, what you have is the same clip being diplayed in the Viewer and Canvas. This is so when color corrections are made in the Viewer you can see the changes in the Canvas straight away. You know if things going the right way or not.
Drag the Color Corrector from the Browser>Effects>Video Filters>Color Correction>Color Corrector and drop it on the Viewer.
A Color Corrector Tab will be available on the Viewer.
Click the Color Corrector Tab and the CC Filter appears.
Click the eye dropper and move the cursor over the Canvas, the cursor should look like an eye dropper if all is well.
Find something that should be WHITE in the Canvas, place the eye dropper over this and click on it. Instant balance correction can be seen in the Canvas.
If this doesn't work then you can use the wheels manually to change the balance.
Al

White Balance Not Showing As Color Temp

running ACR 6.1 on Windows XP boxes. I'm used to adjusting white balance by utilizing color temperature settings, but I don't seem to have that option in ACR 6.1--All I have is a sliding scale from -100 to +100 and I don't see any way to change this. Am I stuck with using ACR this way?

What type of image format is it?
The behavior you're describing is for a non-RAW image. RAW images have absolute temperature. JPGs and TIFs only have relative temperature because the white-balance has already been baked in so to speak without enough information to reverse-engineer the absolute color temperature.

Color Checker And White Balance

Hello Everyone.
I usually have a shot from my Color Checker and create a Profile for that Day of shooting.
I have Two choices.
1- Click on the Gray Color of the Color Checker for a White Balance, and then Export the color checker as a DNG, and create a profile.
2- Create a DNG from the Color Checker shot, and Later apply the White Balance.
In other words, when you open the Color Cheker in the Camera Raw, It Is a Flat Image. If I create a white balance from the Color Checker
and then, Export it as a DNG to create a Profile Is It more Accurate ?
Dose It make any different ?
NOTE:
I get a better White Balance shooting either the Gray color from the Color Checker, Or a 18% Gray Card, rather than shooting a white color of Color Checker
or Shooting a white paper.
UPDATED:
I was reading this article that you should Aim the Gray-Card one third of angle between Camera and the Main Light or sun.
It says If you hold it flat next to your object It is Wrong.
Is this also how you should Aim the Color Checker One third of angel between Camera and the Main Light ?
Please read this article.
What's a Gray Card and Why You Should Own One
Also this Article Is opposite of the top
Using Gray Cards
Thank you very much For All Your Helps.

In your initial post you seem to be asking if it makes a difference whether you set the WB on the DNG you create your color profile from or not. I don’t know that it makes a difference in the color profile but it should be easy enough to test experimentally, by making two DNGs from the same raw file, one where you’ve set the WB to as low as it’ll go, and one where you’ve set the WB to as high as it’ll go, and make a profile from each and see if you get a different look based on which one you use or not.
Then you talk about which gray patch on a color-checker is better to use for WB, saying you don’t use the white one, but one that is grayer. My idea is to use whatever patch matches the brightness of whatever you are wanting to get the closest to the right WB. If you have a midtone subject then use the midtone gray patch. If you have a light subject use a brighter gray patch, and if you have a very dark subject then maybe use a darker patch, though probably not the darkest because there will be more error in that WB computed from the darker patches, so lighter ones would be preferred if you don’t have any other reason to choose one over the other, though not the brightest one, necessarily, because it could be clipped and unusable.
Finally you’re asking about the angle of the card with respect to the camera and the mainlight. You don’t want it to be halfway between the angle of the mainlight and the camera because that would have too much glare to the extent that there is any glare with the specially-prepared surfaces of the color-checker. You also don’t want it to be flat on to the camera, because that gives too much emphasis to the lighting behind the camera position (blue sky, green plants, red dirt, building walls) as blocked by the camera operator, so 1/3 of the way toward the mainlight angle is a way to mix in the lighting along the horizon with the mainlight to get an average. If you doubt whether this makes a different take two CC shots, one flat toward the camera and one facing the mainlight, as the two extremes of the color balance variation and see how much different they are when eyedroppering the same gray patch in LR.
In your situation, with 100% strobes, your only non-strobe-colored lighting would be from reflections of the strobes off other things nearby. Are you in a completely neutral studio setting and everyone except the model wears neutral clothing? If there are close by light colored neutral objects such as walls and ceilings, then some of the strobe light will likely reflect from the clothing and off the walls making the color-balance tinged with a bit of the subject’s colors. You could minimize this by taking your calibration shots without the subject or any non-neutral-colored objects in the vicinity of the strobes so as to minimize the subject reflection coloring the light. Whether any of this matters depends on how neutral and reflective your studio environment is. If your entire studio is matte black except for the model and backdrop then you don’t need to worry, but if it’s not, then there would be some reason to care.

Working Without White Balance

Camera: Nikon D90
Adobe CS5 Design Suite
My goal is to work in Photoshop and Camera Raw without using White Balance.
As I understand, the camera stores within the raw NEF file what was seen by the camera chip without correction. For example, if the camera chip sees say 10,000 red photons, this is stored as say 200. If the camera chip sees 20,000 red photons, this is stored as 400. Hence, it is linear. Of course, the actual storage is as a Bayer array.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-sensors.htm
In theory, from the raw NEF file, one should be able to reconstruct the image that fell upon the camera chip.
On the camera itself, there are many camera White Balance settings. However, it lacks a "None" i.e. "As Is" setting meaning do not assume anything about the light source and make no correctons. Just record the photon levels and give me back the same image that was focused on the camera chip.
As an experiment, I shot a daylight scene using 2,500K (obviously, an extreme value) for the white balance. When I look at the raw file in Camera Raw, the "As Shot" shows a heavy blue tint. Hence, Camera Raw was using the 2,500K white balance selecting of the Nikon for the "As Shot" setting in Camera Raw. Looking at the Camera Raw basic panel White Balance drop down items, there is no "None". Hence, Camera Raw always assumes there is a White Balance and makes corrections.
Why would I want to do this? For example, I have multiple varied color light sources. I want to see exactly the image my eye sees. I do not want the camera making corrections since there is not a single light source for it to make assumptions about how to correct.
Is there a way in Photoshop or Camera Raw to show me the image without any white balance correction. Thanks in advance.

Petrula wrote:
Camera: Nikon D90
Adobe CS5 Design Suite
My goal is to work in Photoshop and Camera Raw without using White Balance.
As I understand, the camera stores within the raw NEF file what was seen by the camera chip without correction. For example, if the camera chip sees say 10,000 red photons, this is stored as say 200. If the camera chip sees 20,000 red photons, this is stored as 400. Hence, it is linear. Of course, the actual storage is as a Bayer array. In theory, from the raw NEF file, one should be able to reconstruct the image that fell upon the camera chip.
On the camera itself, there are many camera White Balance settings. However, it lacks a "None" i.e. "As Is" setting meaning do not assume anything about the light source and make no correctons. Just record the photon levels and give me back the same image that was focused on the camera chip.
The sensor is linear, but the sensitivities of the red, green and blue channels differ, so one must take these differing sensitivities into account when rendering the image from the raw data. As demonstrated by others, channel multipliers of unity (UniWB) do not yield the intended result. To obtain your intended result, empirically determined multipliers would be necessary. When used for white balance, these multipliers are chosen to that a white target will have equal RGB values in the rendered image. For your purpose, multipliers would need to be chosen so that the white target would assume the color of the incident light. In other words, if the white target were illuminated with reddish light, the image would be reddish and not white.
Why would I want to do this? For example, I have multiple varied color light sources. I want to see exactly the image my eye sees. I do not want the camera making corrections since there is not a single light source for it to make assumptions about how to correct.
Is there a way in Photoshop or Camera Raw to show me the image without any white balance correction. Thanks in advance.
On the camera itself, there are many camera White Balance settings. However, it lacks a "None" i.e. "As Is" setting meaning do not assume anything about the light source and make no correctons. Just record the photon levels and give me back the same image that was focused on the camera chip.
As an experiment, I shot a daylight scene using 2,500K (obviously, an extreme value) for the white balance. When I look at the raw file in Camera Raw, the "As Shot" shows a heavy blue tint. Hence, Camera Raw was using the 2,500K white balance selecting of the Nikon for the "As Shot" setting in Camera Raw. Looking at the Camera Raw basic panel White Balance drop down items, there is no "None". Hence, Camera Raw always assumes there is a White Balance and makes corrections.
Why would I want to do this? For example, I have multiple varied color light sources. I want to see exactly the image my eye sees. I do not want the camera making corrections since there is not a single light source for it to make assumptions about how to correct.
Is there a way in Photoshop or Camera Raw to show me the image without any white balance correction. Thanks in advance.
I infer that you want the captured image to reflect the spectra of the actual scene luminances (or more likely a metameric tristimulus match) rather than how you perceive them. The human visual apparatus exhibits chromatic adaption, whereas the sensor does not. The CIE xyz model assumes complete chromatic adaption and the color models based on CIE models need a white point to operate, so you are attempting to use ACR in a manner other than for which it was intended. There is an interesting exercise on the Stanford web site that shows how one can use a digital camera (the Nikon D70) in conjunction with a spectrophotometer to obtain spectrophotometric data from the camera. To recreate the actual spectra, two additional colored filters are required, but if one merely needs a metameric tristimulus match, perhaps only the three native CFA filters of the camera would be needed.
http://scien.stanford.edu/pages/labsite/2006/psych221/projects/06/clintonk/index.htm
Going back to ACR, experience indicates that if one wants to recreate the appearance of a colorful sunset or a candlelit scene (cases that exceed the limits of chromatic adaption), a daylight color balance works best. It would seem intuitively that an equal energy illuminant (CIE Illuminant E) would be appropriate. This corresponds to a correlated color temperature of approximately 5455K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_illuminant

Eye drop tool for white balance

It has been requested an eye drop tool to correct white balance issues in color correction for a long time. Is there any news on this? Will it be a new feature in upcoming updates?
If not... does anyone know a plugin that will do the same thing?
Short description:
I want to be able to select which colors are supposed to be white with an eye drop tool during color correction. This feature was available in earlier FCPs like 6 and 7. It saves tons of hours being able to auto adjust the whitebalance in post, rather than trying to match the correct color balance - dragging up and down these color circles, and then matching the color settings throughout the whole project.

The Color Corrector in FCPX is a misnomer. The color board is more about grading - not correcting.
If you can tell how the color is casting (or read the scopes) then the Color board is easy: line up the global control over the color and drag it downward (that will "subtract" the offending cast from the image.) Or use the shadows, midtones, and highlights controls individually for those ranges.
[But I find scopes difficult to use quickly, so:]
You can also use *any* of the effects, titles, or generators that have any color parameter selection (or gradient!) as an eyedropper in a pinch. Click on the swatch for the color parameter and from the pop up dialog (color picker), use the Magnifier (top left corner) and choose any pixel on the canvas (or anywhere else for that matter.) That will give you clear indication which primary elements are "too heavy" (red, green, blue -- or any two with greater value than the minimum) Using the HSB sliders mode (second icon and last on the dropdown) will give you the degree angle (which is what the color board uses) of the hue cast and the Saturation value will give you an indication of the "magnitude" of the cast. Move the appropriate control in the color board to the Hue degree and subtract the % shown by saturation -- and you're "white balanced" (I should say: neutral.) [PS, if you're not going to be using the effect, etc -- simply disable it by clicking on the blue rectangle -- you'll still be able to use the color picker -- and whatever the effect is won't interfere with your color edits.]
If you have Motion, you can build an "eyedropper" quickly by drawing a rectangle, setting the fill opacity to 0 and publishing its fill color -- it can be an effect, a title or most easily: a generator. Titles and generators are most easily dragged around the storyline and don't become "part of" a clip. If you don't have Motion, you can download one here: http://sight-creations.com/fxexchange/eyeDropperAssist.zip (a generator.)

Can't get decent white balance

I shot some photos with my Canon EOS outside with the white balance set to 3200. The photos are, of course, blue. In iPhoto, using the slider, I can get almost perfectly corrected white balance with great skin tones. Bringing the photos into Aperture and using the white balance correction slider doesn't get me close to what iPhoto did. What's up with this?
RM

It’s a common problem. Usually because of PC monitors being back lit and often set very bright. So the representation on the PC will be different compared with on photo paper. Nice image by the way.
Most labs use the sRGB color space; so make sure you are saving your print copy with that profile. If you view your image on screen by getting down on your knees, and looking up at your monitor rather than from eye level, you will get an indication of how dark the image really is.
I always make separate copies for print with an overall levels adjustment and with sharpening as the final edit, based on each different print size. I would suggest for this image moving the middle pointer to 1.75 but you may need to experiment with different settings. Make a test batch and compare them when you get them back from Walmart to see which works best and use that in future.

White Balance Correction using Color Cecker?

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