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Tutorial - Fixing White Balance



I thought I'd do a really quick guide to fixing the white balance in photographs, as many of the shots I see can be made to look so much better with this quick fix.

Firstly, SHOOT IN RAW!

This is a guide for editing the RAW photos, before you import them into Photoshop/Lightroom etc. A RAW photograph captures so much more data than a normal JPEG, hence why you can make these changes (and many others too!)
If you don't already shoot in RAW, just change now! :cool:

Secondly, this guide was done in Photoshop, but you can do the same thing in Lightroom, and many other software will have something equivalent when editing RAW shots.

Ok, so lets start off by opening our original RAW photo. For me this opens Adobe Camera RAW:

This is the first image we'll fix. Note the horrible orange cast to the photo, caused by the lighting in the room.
Original.jpg


There are two ways to alter the white balance (WB): You can either use the WB Tool to select a white area on the image, OR you can change the colour temperature manually.

First, we'll use the WB Tool:

This is the third icon from the left (selected)
White-Balance-Tool.jpg


Now you simply click on an area on the image you know is white. I know, as I shot this, that the floor was white. So I will click the tool on that area, and the WB will change for the whole image so that looks white. If you keep clicking in different areas, you'll see the WB adjusting for that area.

Result:
Fixed.jpg


Much better! This now looks how it should look.

Now for the second technique:

Using another image here (courtesy of Mr Bomber ;))

Example-2-Original.jpg


This was a fairly long exposure under street lights, so the colour cast is horrific!

The manual way is to change this control:
White-Balance-Controls.jpg


This will alter the colour temperature. The basic rule of thumb, the lower the temperature, the 'colder' the image will look. The higher, the 'warmer'.

I chose to do it manually for this image, as there isn't really a pronounced white area to select using the previous technique.

So here you can see the temperature has been reduced, and the colour cast has been removed. Note how the car actually looks silver now.
Example-2-Fixed-WB.jpg


That's basically it! Remember, you HAVE to shoot in RAW to be able to do this properly.

A few more examples:

Example-3.jpg


Example-4.jpg


Something else I should mention, you can of course alter the WB in the camera before you take the shot. All decent cameras will have a WB setting, designed to be used in different conditions: Cloudy, sunlight, tungsten etc.
You can use these if you prefer, BUT if you're like me, I just leave it in AUTO and alter it after.

Hope that helps, and questions or corrections let me know :)
 

The Boosh!

ClioSport Admin
  Elise, Duster
The bottom picture is awesome after you have fixed it. I normally just let PS fix the white balance by pressing auto but I think I will have a go myself next time.
 

TheEvilGiraffe

South East - Essex
ClioSport Area Rep
Good man.

I'm going to have to change my standard response on just about every photo thread (in here or otherwise) from 'WHITE BALANCE!!!' to 'read the white balance tutorial!!!'

:eek:
 
  Arctic FF 182
Thanks for the guide, whenever I have shot in RAW before I too just pressed auto WB in Photoshop but will try it myself in the future :D
 
  PH1 iceburg
Great guide. I always thought it was my crap camera/skill which made pics look orangey at night. Never realised so uch was down to the editing.
 
  PH1 iceburg
Noob question but how can you tell if your camera can take pics in RAW mode. What exactly is RAW?
 
RAW is just another format that you save the images in. JPEG is the most common, so you will definitely have that. A lot of point and shoot cameras wont capture in RAW, simply because most 'normal' people who just want to take a few snaps on holiday won't have the foggyist idea of what to do with RAW.

Have a look in your manual, or look the model up online and see what the spec is. It will say what formats it can save images it.

If it does capture in RAW, it will be something you have to go into them menus to change.

Also bear in mind, which is something I didn't say in the first post, after you've finished editing the photo, you would have to save it as a 'normal' format like JPEG. As many things you would want to do with photos would not work with RAW formats. If you are like me, I shoot in RAW and keep these RAW files as your backups, so you can re-edit them if you want.
 
  Fiesta ST-3
Noob question but how can you tell if your camera can take pics in RAW mode. What exactly is RAW?

You need to go into your menu and then image quality. Then select Nef raw.

From digital photo
When you take a picture, your camera records light as digital data, which its processor then turns into a jpeg altering lighting, colours and sharpness to produce what it thinks is the best result. A RAW file is different, its just the data and is unprocessed leaving all the creative decisions to you.

For this reason, a RAW file is best thought of as the digital equivilant of a film negative. So converging a RAW file is much like the enlarging and printing process used to turn a negative into a picture on paper.
 
  Ford Focus ST2
Did not know that, I was reading about RAW just yesterday on the DPreview website and then i find this topic!

RAW all the way now (need to buy a bigger SD card now!)

And thanks for the info very helpful!
 
  172 Cup
Thanks for the guide, very useful. Particularly for the yellow light from night pictures when taking pics of my car.
 

Gally

Formerly Mashed up egg in a cup
ClioSport Club Member
Will RAW always look better because it hasn't been touched so to speak?
 
  clio 182 black /gold
I have just come across this in a thread in Clio media. Cheers for the tip. I will have a play about.
 
  White APE
Great guide Dan. Never really got my head around RAW. Once you've edited the white balance do you just hit the open image button to then open it in photoshop etc or do you save the image first?
 
Yeh just hit open.

There's also a button called 'Done' iirc. That will just close the image but apply the adjusted settings. (and not open it into PS)
 
  Citroen DS3 DSport
I use Aperture and they have added a option to set the WB by clicking on a area of natural skin tone, it works well.
 


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