White balance variations in appearance

I imported photos from a night soccer game into LR. The images are ISO 3200
f2.8 at 1/250. The camera is a Canon 1DMII and some of the sequences are
8.5 frames per second. I"m not an ACR expert and I expect there is simple
explanation, but some of the image sequences have very different white
balance appearance (some display warm and some display cool), even though
all the settings look the same and the images are 0.1 seconds difference in
time. Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong? LR 1.3 and Windows XP.
Best,
Christopher

Let me guess - shot in RAW, taken under stadium lighting composed largely of metal-halide (white) lights, shutter speeds faster than 1/120th.
The lights flicker at 120Hz, and they run off all three phases. Thus they flicker out of phase (120°) with each other. Sometimes you are catching them on the down side, sometimes on the up side and sometimes full on or off. All of this affects white balance and there's nothing you can do about it.

Similar Messages

Aperture: White Balance in Adjustments inspector no longer appears by default

Aperture 3.3.2
In the past week, the White Balance adjustment in the Adjustments inspector no longer appears by default in my program. It's always been there, above Exposure, Enhance, and Highlights and Shadows.
Now, White Balance is gone, and I have to click 'add adjustment... White Balance' for every single photo, which is hugely frustrating. I shoot in Canon RAW.
What happened to my default White Balance, and can someone help me put it back?
Thanks!

Click the cogwheel beside the White Balance adjustment and add this adjustment to the default set.
Regards
Léonie

Adobe Bridge - White balance metadata

When I browse raw files from my Canon EOS Rebel XT/350D in Adobe Bridge I always look at the Metadata tab to check for the f-stop value, speed, white balance settings, etc. of the currently-selected raw image file.
I noticed that the pictures shot in Automatic White Balance appear on the upper-left portion of the Metadata tab as an icon indicating AWB. However, whenever I take pictures with manually-set white balances, such as shade, day light, tungsten, etc., the metadata tab no longer indicates the white balance I chose, instead, it either shows an icon of a camera or two dashes, as in --.
Is there any way I can set Adobe Bridge to show the appropriate White Balance icon for pictures I take with manually-set white balances?

Hi Curt,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, White Balance is checked in preferences/metadata. All of the Exposure metadata entries are also checked.
I forgot to mention that my version of Camera Raw is 4.5 (the latest).
You know, although White Balance is checked, I cannot find a White Balance text entry on any of the metadata lists (File properties, IPTC core, Camera Data (EXIF), etc.). The only place where I can see the White Balance setting in on the upper left corner of the Metadata tab, under the f-stop value.
Here is a personal question for you: When you browse your pictures in Adobe Bridge and you select one that was taken with a specific White Balance (not Auto), does your Adobe Bridge display an icon for that particular White Balance setting? I just want to eliminate the possibility that this happening only in my computer.
Thanks a lot for your time and attention.

Can you remove the camera white balance setting in Aperture

I have a Canon 7D and use Aperture for processing and storing my images.
With the Canon I shoot both video and still and frequently adjust the white balance in the camera. I make a frequent mistake in leaving the wrong white balance setting on - eg when taking video indoors in the evening I set the white balance to indoors (the Canon seems poor at white balance decision making on video) and then I forget I'm not using auto white balance and switch to taking a photo with flash. The result is a horrible blue photo - which if I don't spot the problem at the time seems very hard to correct afterwards.
I use the Aperture white balance adjustments frequently but unless there is a patch or white or grey I an use the dropper on, I find this particular situation seems to be right off the scale of what I can fix in Aperture. I end up with sliders at the extremes of the scales and no intuitive sense of what numbers to type in manually to try and get realistic colour - so I often end up discarding these photos even if the shot itself is something I'd like to use.
So my question is given I'm importing RAW, is there a way to show the phoo without the (wrong) white balance setting I applied in the camera, to let me choose white balance from scratch?
Or if not, do you have any advice about how to adjust from this very bluey unrealistic colour of image?

Kirkby - thanks for the quick reply.
Didn't know you could drag inside a value field - that's helpful.
But being able to get different numbers on the slider isn't the root of my problem.
In a specific example I have two photos - one taken with white balance set to flash and the photo was with flash, where after a bit of tweaking to get the colour I want the temp slider is at 5000K (and tint 0). The second photo has my shooting error with interior lighting white balance but taken with flash. The two shots were taken from almost the same point of the same view (but different people in frame). The shot with the white balance error comes off camera horribly blue coloured. I can fiddle with the two sliders - I take temperature to 20000K and tint to 40 to do the best with it I can, and with those settings one of the two faces is approaching flesh colour but the wall behind the subjects (which is a light blue in reality) is now appearing light yellow in places. I just can't get a good looking colour effect no matter ow extreme the slider settings.
I may have phrased my question badly - as I totally agree you can't show a raw without a colour setting - so maybe I'm better asking to be able to use a different colour setting on the raw data rather than having to start with adjustments on top of my white balance mistake.
Given the two shots were in the same place against the same background and the same lighting (both with flash) it seems to me I ought to be able to get a similar colour effect on both and I just can't. To illustrate here are the two photos (the one on the left was shot with flash wb and in Aperture I'm viewing it with 5000K and 0 tint, the one on the right was shot with indoor wb and in Aperture I'm viewing it with 20000K and 40 tint and it looks terrible!)
https://www.box.com/shared/qle3t6ovyhrd1egez3vc

White balance for infrared images

Hello there,
I love making infrared photos with my digital camera (Canon dSRL).
When I take an IR shot, I usually set the custom white balance inside the camera, so that false colours appear correctly. If I open the CR2 RAW file using the software provided by Canon (Digital Photo Professional) the image appears correctly; on the contrary, if I use Adobe Camera Raw (which I prefer to) it seems that my custom white balance is not properly displayed.
So I'm wondering if this is an issue of CR or there is something to do that I don't know. Can you help me?

This tutorial by Sean MacCormick shows how you can edit the camera profile so that White Balance for IR images is brought within the adjustment range that Camera Raw and Lightroom http://lightroom-blog.com/2009/05/creating-ir-camera-profile.html

Bridge CS5 applies wrong white balance during thumbnail extraction (raw files only)

Hello to all Adobe Wizards,
Hobbiest photographer here. I use a Canon T2i and I have been shooting raw with auto white balance.
After I upload the CR2 files to Bridge, Bridge begins thumbnail extraction. This is when the problem begins: I watch Bridge extracting thumbnail photo after photo, turning them into wrong white balance one by one. After Bridge is done, I open one of these photos in Camera Raw, it shows the photo in "custom white balance". I was able to change it back to "As Shot". But every photo in Bridge now has custom white balance and is difficult to view in Bridge. This screenshot shows what my Bridge looks like after thumbnail extraction....
Yesterday, just out of curiosity, I took some photos with different white balance settings on the camera. I uploaded them to Bridge and Bridge over-wrote all the white balance settings. I then imported the same photos (from the same files) to iPhoto, they show up with correct write balance. Please see the second screenshot.
The third screenshot shows a unedited photo I opened from Bridge to Camera Raw, and the same photo as it appears in iPhoto, both unedited.
Again, this only happens to CR2 files. All tif, jpeg files are fine.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
-Wolfie

Any ideas?
First of all, shooting Raw has the benefit of changing the color temperature (Whit Balance) to what ever you like from whatever you shot in camera.
To me it seems you once have saved a custom white balance as default setting and this is been applied to every new file because you told Bridge to do so. The easiest way to get out of this is open a raw file in ACR and in the basic tab at the right side you see a small icon for sub menu (next to the word basic). Click on it and from the row choose 'Reset Camera Raw defaults' at the bottom.
Also decide whether you want to stay in 16 bit mode (as you are now as shown in the blue line under the preview). If you want to chance it back to 8 bit just click on that blue line and choose your options from that menu. You only have to do this once for the files from that same camera, ACR remembers the settings for you.
Using 16 bit mode has advantages when using critical color corrections (but then you also should change the color mode to ProPhoto in my opinion). The disadvantage is that 16 bit doubles the file size compared to 8 bit
Having set the ACR defaults should effect your thumbs immediately by building new thumbs and previews but if not you must choose purge cache for folder from the menu tools / cache/ purge cache for folder. Now the new settings will be applied.
It may take some time so let Bridge do its work properly before starting other jobs in Bridge (see the activity bar bottom left to check if Bridge is still caching).

White Balance Selector Tool operation

The WB selector tool still appears as though it only selects one pixel in the the "Pick a Target Neutral" array display window, the one with the x over it (regardles of whether you scale the matrix to 16x16 or 5x5 with the scale slider. It does not appear to allow averaging of adjacent pixels to reduce the effect of random noisy pixels messing up the wb. This has already been brought up in previous threads and the LR team apparently dismisses the concern. Reminder to Adobe Labs: we don't all shoot with relatively noiseless Nikon D3/ D700s. Our cameras do produce significant color noise even at relatively low ISOs. So when we attempt to find a neutral patch or pick a spot on a neutral whibal card with the color picker tool, we see a random array of various shades of gray, some a little more purple, some a little more green in the tool's selection window. Depending on which pixel we place the X on, we get a different white balance. EVEN THOUGH WE ARE HOVERING OVER WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN EVENLY LIT NEUTRAL BALANCE CARD! Could you guys please talk with your Photoshop colleagues and figure out how to give us a 5x5 or NxN pixel averaging white balance picker. Or maybe you confirm that I am wrong and in fact this tool already DOES average all the pixels I see in the "Pick a Target Neutral" pixel array display? This would be far more useful an option than the ability to put a decorative flourish at the bottom of a menu panel! Thanks.

In addition to the point being made above in regards to a 3x3 or 5x5 pixel eye dropper for the selection of your color balance(color temperature), it would be great to have an eye dropper to select & set your black, white & mid grey(18%) point inside of lightroom to not only neutralize any color cast but also to set your tonal values with a x-rite color checker or similar reference.

White balance settings always display 5000K 0 Tint

Been searching on this, found a few things, but nothing helpful.
In the past few weeks, it appears that Aperture is no longer interpreting my cameras white balance settings properly. The colors themselves are fine, however, the adjustment applet always shows 5000k with 0 tint. I'm not quite sure when this started, but it's quite frustrating. This appears to be happening on everything newly imported. (I can only verify JPG at the moment, as I'm seeing this on a Canon S95 and 60D, which both don't have RAW support yet in Aperture).
Anyone ever see this happen, or no of a solution? I'm using Aperture 3, latest updates etc. on OS X 10.6.4. My older files all appear fine, it's just these recents, from these two cameras. Unfortunately, I've sold my other gear, and don't have an older cam around to test. Either way, other products, Adobe, seem to be reading things properly.
Thanks for any input.

So all these files are JPEGs?
Note that white balance works very differently with JPEGs and RAW files. There really is no "white balance" information in a JPEG, and you can't adjust them the same way. That's one of the big advantages of RAW files. I suspect once Aperture supports the RAW files for those cameras, then you'll get proper white balance. Until then, with JPEGs you're kinda SOL. It's a bunch more work. But that's the nature of the medium.

Can Bridge report in-camera settings for White Balance?

No matter what settings I choose in Bridge Preferences, I cannot get it to tell me what was the White Balance (WB) setting of the camera when raw images were shot.
This seems an odd omission because Camera Raw is passed this information and displays images correctly, although it doesn't report what WB value it was given, only that what you are viewing, prior to any editing, is the default "As Shot".
I'm referring to raw files shot on my Canon 300D, Nikon D700 and Canon 5D Mark II.
Currently I'm using PsCS6 (13.0.1.2 x64), Bridge CS6 (5.0.2.4 x64) and ACR 8.1 on a Windows 7 x64 8GB system, but the same omission existed on the same Windows system with ACR 7.x in CS6 and all releases of PsCS5, Bridge CS5 and ACR 6.6 and 6.7.
On the opening dialog of Bridge Preferences, at the bottom you can choose whether or not you wish to 'Hide Empty Fields'. Selecting or unselecting this option does not have any effect upon Bridge's inability to report WB when, from within Bridge, you select File Info from the File menu or by hitting Ctrl + I.
The only locations in Bridge Preferences I can find that need selection (and which I have selected) for Bridge to supply WB information upon invoking File Info are here:
Preferences\Metadata\Camera Data (Exif)\White Balance; and
Preferences\Metadata\Camera Raw\White Balance
I have also selected Preferences\Metadata\File Properties\Supports XMP, and yet Bridge fails to give the in-camera WB in the Camera Data tab of File Info.
I have been able to locate references to WB in the following tabs of File Info:
File Info\Advanced, where there appears, under the sub-tab 'Exif Properties (http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0)', an entry such as 'exif:White Balance:1'; and
File Info\Raw Data an entry such as '<exif:White Balance >1< /exif:White Balance>'.
However, these are just code numbers, not names like 'Cloudy' or 'Shade', and they are not only inconsistent (both showing the code 1 for an unedited image I know was shot with Auto WB and another unedited image I know was shot with Flash WB) but also it would appear that the codes may refer to the WB as modified by ACR - because an image I know had its in-camera WB of Auto altered in ACR shows a code of 'Custom' rather than 0, 1 or some other number.
So what am I missing? Does anyone know how to make Bridge Preferences display the in-camera setting for WB, and if so, under which tab of File Info do you look for the answer once you have set up Preferences properly?
Message was edited by: Andrew_Hart
Just corrected my current Photoshop version

I'm afraid that you just haven't addressed the question that I asked in my original post.
I still like to think I have but if you for whatever reason need this info showing in the metadata you probably be better of trying to alter it your self or find a way to address Paul personally (maybe via a private message).
I have not heard from him for a long time and a small google search provided me with this forum post, hope it helps you, maybe you can also persuaded Paul to come back, he is very missed!
http://www.ps-scripts.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5508

Help with RAW files and custom white balance.

ive long had this issue with RAW shooting and adobe photoshop and lightroom, my main subject is a saltwater reef aquarium that is lit by artificial lighting, i shoot canon and use the custom white balance setting to get everything looking proper and it works good.. to an extent.. if i shoot jpg the photos all turn out as shot, if i shoot RAW the white balance in adobe programs is totally messed up and you cant fix it.. if i use DPP by canon, its perfect and looks just as shot or just a a jpg would look.. my question is how can i get adobe lilightroom to render my RAW files correctly.
below are all 3 images, first one was converted and exported to jpg in canon DPP without any adjustments and is what the photo should look like, second has been exported from photoshop, and 3rd i added a link to the actual RAW file. why cant my lightroom interpret these properly?
heres a link to the actual RAW file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5a39ctllwgrem7a/_MG_8971.CR2
this was a raw converted in canon dpp, and its what the aquarium looks like, and is what the photo should look like. just to note, any other editing or viewing program besides adobe products all render the image correctly.
this is what photoshop and lightroom do to my Raw files, theres no way to adjust anything to get even remotely close to correct..

The white-balance Temperature of this image as computed by the camera is way beyond the 50,000K upper limit as you can see when you open the file in LR or ACR, so Adobe cannot reach the As Shot WB temperature number and stops at 50,000K which is still too blue -- although EXIFtool says: Color Temp As Shot : 10900, so maybe Adobe's wildly high 50,000K number is based on a faulty camera profile that exaggerates blues:
However, using the Camera Standard makes things not nearly so garish blue, and it is possible to use Photoshop to neutralize things even more:
However, as you say, other raw converters do ok with this image despite the high WB temperature, so I think the Canon T3/1100D profile needs some work, but probably won't get it since it is not a high-end camera.
For example, here is the default conversion from LibRaw that is part of RawDigger, and in my opinion is an improvement on the camera rendering though perhaps lacks a bit of saturation:
As another example, here is RawTherapee's conversion, after I neutralized the auto-tone and color values it applies by default, and appears to be a bit too saturated but that could be easily adjusted:
I would agree that Adobe is doing something wrong with this camera in this lighting. A clue is the bright green color of the top-central coral which seems to be yellow in the non-Adobe renderings.

Premiere Elements 13 Eyedropper for white balance, gray, and black NOT WORKING. Help!

I'm using Premiere Elements 13.1 on an iMac, and trying to adjust the white balance on a clip with ZERO success. The main reason for this is that I cannot utilize the "eyedropper" selector; I know what should appear white, gray, and black, but cannot select those items.
In the Three-Way Color Corrector there are Eyedroppers to use to specify areas of known color range. I have tried without success to select ANY of the eyedroppers...
I have clicked on it - NOTHING
I have held the left mouse on it and attempted to drag it onto the frame - NOTHING
I have right-clicked it - NOTHING
The eyedroppers are not greyed out and they do respond when clicked. I have hit Reset button galore. I have restarted the program.
I have held my mouth funny - NOTHING :-)
When my cursor is hovering over the tool, it changes to an eyedropper. If I click, nothing happens when the cursor is moved - the cursor changes right back into its regular arrow shape. The cursor does nothing to the image if an item is clicked....there is no change to anything on the monitor.
I am a longtime Photoshop user but new to Premiere Elements. This dropper seems to work nothing like the PS ones. In fact, it doesn't work at all...so far.
Can someone please tell me what I need to do to simply select the eyedropper and take it onto the image and select the white (or gray or black)??? Before I go bananas (may be too late)? THANK YOU!

Still not working. I think the root cause of the problem is the mechanics of using the tool itself; I hope this screen shot shows up below ...
Here I have APPLIED EFFECTS open, and have selected Midtones (Greys) to be expanded so that the eyedropper and other details appear:
Now, just below where it has a box and "Impacted frame area in white" (which I know is a checkbox allowing the area effected to be seen), there is a little color box and an eyedropper.
What EXACTLY do I do to select (activate) the eyedropper and subsequently tell the program what I feel should be grey in the selected clip?
As mentioned before, I can click it and the cursor briefly changes to the same shape as the eyedropper. But as soon as I move the cursor a fraction, it changes back to an arrow (normal cursor) shape. Even then, going to the area I need to select in the image, and then clicking it, does exactly nothing to the appearance of the image shown -- even if the colors start way off. No correction at all. It is as if the tool does nothing. The color wheels below all this DO work however - it's just the eyedropper that doesn't do anything. This just cannot be Adobe's intention. I am convinced there must be some flaw in how I am selecting the tool itself. And the user guide - needless to say - is worthless in explaining the mechanics.
So very frustrating. This appears to be the only thing wrong with the program - nothing else seems amiss.
NOTE: To add insult to injury, this promised white/gray/black balance feature and the three-way-color corrector is the SOLE REASON I purchased the software. Funny.

Photo Merge using RAW files - does white balance matter?

I'm using a Canon 5dII and create RAW files to be merged - both stitched and for HDR. In other words, if I bracket 3 (0, +2, -2) I'll do the bracket 3 times, once for the left, middle and right parts of the scene and will have 9 RAW images. I'm asking the question because as I pan I may be moving from sun to shade. If I use auto white balance, I'm concerned that the 3 stitched sections may have a different WB set (e.g. sun and shade). If PS5 doesn't use the WB tag, then it is immaterial. If it does use the WB tag would it use the same setting for all 3 parts of the stitched scene. I could of course manually set the WB for each series of 9, but would prefer not to if it is not necessary and continue to use AWB as I now do.
THANKS! I know my question is not specific to Macintosh - If this should be directed to another forum please let me know.

If I am visuallizing what you are asking correctly, yes it does matter. In my
exspirence the way I have had the most success doing what you are doing is
to merge all your image that are -2 stop into a pano. Save
as a high-res TIFF 16-bit or higher. Repeat the process
for the following 2 stop and then merge your TIFFs to
and HDR. Something I always to before
Photomerging is to use Camera Raw get the setting of exposure and what not exactl
y how you what them copy those setting and paste to all the following images that are included in
that photomerge, that helps to take care or variation
s that can happen with exposure doing panos, it more often then not has a
real nice outcome.

Custom white balance from Canon 5D Mark 3 erased from RAW files when developed in Lightroom 4.2?

Hi Everybody!
Got a bit of a problem...I set custom white balance for a lot of my photos (I'm a nightclub photographer) as sometimes the colours are so saturated the image becomes unusable. Unfortunately in Lightroom 4 the photos import with the correct WB I have set but when I click on them to develop the settings are changed and the image looks completely awful. I try and adjust the image back to the way I have taken it but it never looks the same....why is Lighroom not recognising the WB settings I set within my 5D?
Any pointers?
Cheers!
Sarah

All Raw images can be expected to change appearance significantly after the initial display of the in-camera embedded JPG preview, has been replaced with a true LR-generated conversion preview.
This is because all in-camera image settings and processing options (except WB) are disregarded by Lightroom. Lightroom just works to its own processing default, and this is in your control to get as you want it.
Even the in-camera WB, is only used provided LR is set to "as-shot" WB at the top of the Basic panel. If LR's default gets changed to a fixed WB of some kind, then that is what every image will show initially thereafter.
Even with the right WB transferred and used, first LR renditions can still look very different than the camera rendition; two people picking up the same violin might make very different noises with it. One of the biggest effects for that, is when proprietary in-camera "dynamic range boost" (or however else named) functions have been used. These work by deliberate underexposure of the basic capture, and Adobe software tends not to then apply the right corrective for that.
Even without these special functions in play, it is still usual for Adobe factory default processing - combined with camera programmed metering - to produce images which appear a little on the dark side, but which nonetheless have good scope for brightening without losing highlight detail. An image that looks generally bright enough in this context, will usually turn out to have blown highlights. If the camera has any kind of a low-noise sensor, the shadows will tolerate brightening even better than the highlights will.
And if your customised LR default has applied some brightening and that turns out to be too much in a given case, it can simply be turned back down for that image with no harm done. Or you might prefer to under-correct with your default; up to you.

Lightroom 4: Massive BUG with White Balance / Quick Develop. Totally Unreliable!

I just recently updated from LR3 and just now found a massive bug concerning the white balance adjustments in the quick develop module.
After a studio shooting and especially after weddings I use the "make warmer" adjustment in the quick develop panel to give all (a few thousand NEFs) a nicer look all at once.
The great thing about this is - like all quick developments - that it increases the color temperature relative to each image's starting white balance.
Yesterday I wanted to edit my first wedding in LR4 and like in LR3 applied one click "make warmer" to all images at once (previously WB was "as shot").
While I browsed through the images to rate them I noticed some of them were very "pinkish".
After closer inspection it came out that a lot of images (50%-60%) had the following custom WB set: 5316, Tint: +10.
It is always this exact combination no matter what the "as shot" WB was.
That setting of course applies way too much magenta to a lot of images.
After resetting the WB of single images to "as shot" and selecting "make warmer" once again the images look fine and get appropriate WB values.
But every time I select more than one image to apply "make warmer" a lot of them get the strange value of 5316 and +10.
Sometimes it's even just the first few images of the selection that get correct values and all the following ones get the off value. It appears to be totally random.
I tried completely resetting all images prior to "make warmer", setting them to different camera profiles first and even switched them to Process 2010 again. But absolutely no luck! :-(
The "make warmer" tool gives me totally unusable results.
I find it strange, that I couldn't find anything about that on the net.
PLEASE fix this ASAP.
To apply WB to thousands of images individually is a real pain.
I would be glad to support you fixing the issue.
My setup:
Nikon D700
Nikon D300s
(Both cameras affected, I only shoot NEF)
Win7 x64
LR4.1 as well as LR4.2 RC

@ssprengel
I get your point but that is exactly my problem.
Not only is there no pattern but also once I reset a file that got 5316+10 to "as shot" and select "make warmer" for it again it does get the correct value! As long as I select it as a single file without others.
So just to simplify my findings and explain what I have been doing all night:
- SELECT 5 files in Library View (all freshly imported, no settings altered, WB "as shot")
File 1: 5700 / -8
File 2: 5500 / -8
File 3: 5550 / -8
File 4: 5450 / -6
File 5: 5500 / -7
- CLICK "make warmer" once
Result:
File 1: 6089 / -8
File 2: 5867 / -8
File 3: 5316 / +10
File 4: 5316 / +10
File 5: 5316 / +10
1 and 2 are okay!
- SELECT 3-5
- RESET THEM
Result:
File 3: 5550 / -8
File 4: 5450 / -6
File 5: 5500 / -7
- CLICK "make warmer" again
Result:
File 3: 5316 / +10
File 4: 5812 / -6
File 5: 5867 / -7
File 4 and 5 are okay!
- SELECT File 3 again
- RESET IT
- CLICK "make warmer"
Result:
File 3: 5923 / -8
now File 3 is okay, too.
It is completely random!
But that is no way to work, of course.
I have two weddings from last week and am going nuts already.

LR4 White Balance Numbers Differ w/ Nikon D4 and D3s

I've noticed that LR interprets the white balance settings differently for my raw .nef files coming from my Nikon D3s and D4 bodies; even when a specific kelvin temp is chosen in camera.
Here's a few examples:
D4 flash WB, LR shows as 6150, +2
D3s flash WB, LR shows as 6400, +9
D4 WB set to 5k, LR reads as 4750, +1
D3s WB set to 5k, LR reads as 4900, +10
Any thoughts on why this is happening, and what (if anything) I should do to get xxxx kelvin temp in camera to import as xxxx kelvin temp in LR?

Eric Chan, senior designer of LR/ACR wrote:
Quote:
The white balance readout in terms of temperature & tint depends on the camera profile (more specifically, the translation between so-called "camera neutral" values and temperature/tint values). Different raw converters use different profiles. This results in different readouts, even if image appearance is the same.
The process of reporting white balance values is non-standardized.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/fo...2#msg411522%29
Raw converters, whether in the camera or in a computer, do not deal with color temperatures, they deal with multipliers applied to the red and blue channels. But because representing a WB as a pair of multiplier values would be mystifying for most users, the GUI translates those numbers into the corresponding color temperature that the WB will neutralize, a concept more familiar to most photograhers. When "As Shot" is set in the converter it reads from the image file metadata the mutipliers listed there and applies them. However, the WB multipliers are applied after the camera profile and since different converters use different profiles with differing renderings of the basic color values, the post-WB image values are different, even though the same multipliers are used, and the corresponding Kelvin temperature is different.
Now, what happens when you dial a temperature into your camera? The firmware calculates what multipliers will be needed in combination with the Nikon profile in order to neutralize light of that color. Then it records the multipliers in the metadata and, if outputting a jpg, applies them. But if you output a Raw, LR reads the multipliers and does the reverse calculation, "What temperature will be neutralized if these multipliers are used with an Adobe profile?" and does not come back to the same temperature that you set in the camera.
Different cameras = different profiles = different temperatures.

White balance variations in appearance

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