18% gray card is the most cost-beneficial tool I've found!

[New Daddy]

I mostly shoot environmental/candid portraits of my family, so this may not apply to everyone. Having said that, an 18% gray card is the best bang-for-the-buck item I've purchased ever. It cost about $10, and it helps me nail the white balance and exposure. My camera has a custom white balance setting that adjusts the color balance based on a frameful of neutral color, which works amazingly well. I also use the 18% gray card almost like an incident light meter by spot metering off the card before shooting.

I think the use of 18% gray card should be recommended more strongly for beginner photographers.

[chauncey]

I cannot argue with what you have said.

[rambler4466]

Hi New Daddy, try this test (in Photoshop) to see if you can start to nail WB without a gray card. Choose a photo from your files that you can play with. A landscape with the frame full of colors would be good. Or take a quick photo of some trees near by.
After opening it PS make a copy of the background layer and convert it to B&W. With the rectangular tool make a small box, say 1 x 2. Goto Edit>Fill,select 50% Grey, 100% Opacity and Normal, check OK. You should see an 18% grey box in your image. In the Window choice along the top, select "info". The info window has the numerical values of the colors or tones from your image. With the Move Tool, place the arrow in the grey box and you should see the R<G<B values are at 128 which is middle grey which is your 18% grey.

Now move the arrow around the frame until you find the spots that are equal to or close to 128, or drag the box around in the frame to see where you image is closest to the grey in the box.

Whatever areas you have identified are areas of the image you could have metered on to get a reading close to 18% grey by using spot-metering in your camera to get the exposure that you wanted.

With practice you will be able to meter right in on the 18% grey areas of the subjects you are looking at in your camera. For example, if your child is wearing a white t-shirt, do not meter on that because it will turn out grey in your photo. Spot-meter on the face (assuming caucasian) or a middle grey area, and the t-shirt will show up correctly as white.

I think this is sort of what happens in Camera Raw. To achieve the proper white balance, you place the white balance eye-dropper on an area of the image that is close to middle grey and the image white balance will shift. So, what would have happened if you had spot-metered those areas in the first place before you clicked the shutter?!! (BTW Place the dropper on other colors for some wild or often very pleasing effects. Try it with sunsets and sun rises!)

Anyway, I have been trying this method with mixed results, so far.

[Geoff F]

Quite often I want a result which isn't correct white balance, and shooting Raw does make that easier to adjust.

But with some subjects, like flowers for example, it is essential to create a custom white balance to use as a reference point even with Raw shots.

Can also be useful in other difficult situations such as poor light etc.

I have a fairly large fold up card which is 12 inches square in use with one white side which makes a handy small reflector or shade in difficult conditions when making macro shots etc.

[Polar01]

If you have a grey card or a photochecker passport use them they will give you a good white balance based on the lighting at the time. As for Franks so called method as he himself states "mixed results", do not even go that way.

Cheers:

Allan

[Mike Buckley]

Though I have always used grey cards in the past to assist with white balance, I have added a WhiBal card to my Christmas and birthday list because it has been discussed here several times that a grey card is best for setting exposure and that a WhiBal card is best for setting white balance. A casual search of the threads will probably reveal one of those discussions.

[New Daddy]

Though I have always used grey cards in the past to assist with white balance, I have added a WhiBal card to my Christmas and birthday list because it has been discussed here several times that a grey card is best for setting exposure and that a WhiBal card is best for setting white balance. A casual search of the threads will probably reveal one of those discussions.

Is that right? Actually what I have is a three-card set - one white, one gray and one black. My understanding is that true white (0,0,0) is more difficult to manufacture than 18% gray. So even for white balance, gray cards are more neutral than white cards.

[Digital]

Though I have always used grey cards in the past to assist with white balance, I have added a WhiBal card to my Christmas and birthday list because it has been discussed here several times that a grey card is best for setting exposure and that a WhiBal card is best for setting white balance. A casual search of the threads will probably reveal one of those discussions.

I have to agree with Mike on this one.


Bruce

[DanK]

Quite a few different things going on in this thread.

Re Mike's comment: I use a whiBal. If I recall correctly, they even say on their site that the card is designed to be spectrally neutral, not to give correct exposure.

Re Geoff's comment:

But with some subjects, like flowers for example, it is essential to create a custom white balance to use as a reference point even with Raw shots.

I don't think there is any need to do this. I shoot a lot of flowers (check my site), and I have not set a custom white balance once in the years I have been shooting raw. The camera's white balance has no effect on the raw image, although some software uses it for an initial rendering.

Frank: I am not sure what your technique is doing, but it sounds like you may be mixing up white balance and neutral tonality.E.g., when you use the WB eyedropper in camera raw or lightroom, the tonality (brightness) of the area chosen is almost irrelevant. What the tool is looking for is the mix of color channels. Likewise, spot metering on that area would create the right tonality for that area, but it would have zero effect on white balance.

Someone else may know, but I have a vague recollection that the 18% gray was designed for the response curve of most films and that neutral gray with digital sensors is 12%. Is that right? I'm just curious, because I never use a card for exposure, just for WB.

[Polar01]

Dan that last comment about digital being 12% grey is true, thing is I can not remember where I read it, I wish I did remember where.

Allan

[Andrew76]

Quite a few different things going on in this thread.

No kidding!

I too shoot RAW, and find no use for setting a custom white balance. Admittedly, most of my stuff is posed, studio type stuff, whether it's flowers, or inanimate objects.

Out of curiosity though, wouldn't "Environmental, candid portraits" be the worst time to use a grey card - no offense intended, I just wouldn't have thought there would be time to set a custom white balance in that situation. But I don't shoot a lot of that sort, so am unfamiliar with the technique/protocol.

[Mike Buckley]

I like to photograph a card any time skin tones are important. That's because it's easier to get them right when the white balance is nailed and because the software that I use makes it easy to select the ideal white balance if I have photographed a reference card. If doing that is practical, great. If not, I do my best to get the best skin tones without use of the card.

[Glenn NK]

With regard to exposure, the histogram (with the proper adjustment of the camera's Contrast setting), seems to be a better aid to exposure.

A WhiBal card (these targets come with different names, but this one is common), can be an AID to white balance, but will not necessarily provide the correct WB. As we've discussed not long ago on another thread, many scenes have more than one area with different white balance requirements.

I use Lightroom, and there are nine (9) WB presets: As Shot, Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash, Custom. Discounting As Shot, Auto, and Custom, this leaves six different WB's, and it's not hard to see that more than one of these could be in one image.

How would a WB card solve this?

Practical examples:

1) Shadows in a sunlit scene will have a different WB than openly lit areas in direct sunlight.

2) Indoor shots often have more than one colour of light (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc.). This before we take into account shadows from any of these light sources.

3) Sunset images have a WB that I haven't really figured out yet. Much of the scene will be in shadow, some of the light will be filtered through the clouds, and if the sun is in the image, that's another WB requirement. I adjust a sunset in PP to look the way I remembered it and how I want it to look.

In full shade when shooting flower macros, I've used a WB target to good effect, but by simply adding some direct light or reflected light (I have a combo filter + reflector) and the process falls apart. One side of the reflector is gold- coloured!! This adds a nice effect to roses, but WB correctness? - NO.

WB targets can be a useful tool, but must be used with care. And like any tool, they can't be used for every chore - each tool has its usefulness.

I hope that I haven't rained on anyone's parade, but WB targets are not a one-stop fail-safe solution. The guys that make and sell them will say differently of course.

WB cards are fine if the lighting is completely uniform across the image.

Glenn

[Colin Southern]

Dan that last comment about digital being 12% grey is true, thing is I can not remember where I read it, I wish I did remember where.

Allan

Probably Thom Hogan

http://www.bythom.com/graycards.htm

[New Daddy]

How would a WB card solve this?

Practical examples:

1) Shadows in a sunlit scene will have a different WB than openly lit areas in direct sunlight.

2) Indoor shots often have more than one colour of light (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc.). This before we take into account shadows from any of these light sources.

3) Sunset images have a WB that I haven't really figured out yet. Much of the scene will be in shadow, some of the light will be filtered through the clouds, and if the sun is in the image, that's another WB requirement. I adjust a sunset in PP to look the way I remembered it and how I want it to look.

Simple. It can't. For that matter, no other tool can solve the color balance issue in that case, because you have mixed color cast. I'd still use my white balance card and nail the color balance for at least for the part of the scene where my subject is located.

[Colin Southern]

Hi New Daddy, try this test (in Photoshop) to see if you can start to nail WB without a gray card. Choose a photo from your files that you can play with. A landscape with the frame full of colors would be good. Or take a quick photo of some trees near by.
After opening it PS make a copy of the background layer and convert it to B&W. With the rectangular tool make a small box, say 1 x 2. Goto Edit>Fill,select 50% Grey, 100% Opacity and Normal, check OK. You should see an 18% grey box in your image. In the Window choice along the top, select "info". The info window has the numerical values of the colors or tones from your image. With the Move Tool, place the arrow in the grey box and you should see the R<G<B values are at 128 which is middle grey which is your 18% grey.

Now move the arrow around the frame until you find the spots that are equal to or close to 128, or drag the box around in the frame to see where you image is closest to the grey in the box.

Whatever areas you have identified are areas of the image you could have metered on to get a reading close to 18% grey by using spot-metering in your camera to get the exposure that you wanted.

With practice you will be able to meter right in on the 18% grey areas of the subjects you are looking at in your camera. For example, if your child is wearing a white t-shirt, do not meter on that because it will turn out grey in your photo. Spot-meter on the face (assuming caucasian) or a middle grey area, and the t-shirt will show up correctly as white.

I think this is sort of what happens in Camera Raw. To achieve the proper white balance, you place the white balance eye-dropper on an area of the image that is close to middle grey and the image white balance will shift. So, what would have happened if you had spot-metered those areas in the first place before you clicked the shutter?!! (BTW Place the dropper on other colors for some wild or often very pleasing effects. Try it with sunsets and sun rises!)

Anyway, I have been trying this method with mixed results, so far.

Frank, sorry, but you're totally mixing up exposure and white balancing here. The 18% grey card / 50% grey method you describe is fine for exposure, but has zero to do with white balancing. White balancing is achieved by referencing against a spectrally neutral reference - a reference that should contain equal amounts of red, green, and blue in the light reflected off it, but doesn't due to the influence of the light falling on it. When you white-balance a shot to the reference the program knows that the values for red green and blue should all be equal - sees that they're not - and adjusts the entire image so that they are. For the most part it doesn't make a lot of difference whether that reference has 5% reflectivity - 18% - 80% or 98% (in fact the higher the reflectivity the better, just so long as none of the channels are blown).

Terminology can get a bit blurred with these cards - traditionally a gray card was used to set just exposure, but in more recent times they're getting used for white balancing too. Just remember that unless stated otherwise, a "gray card" may not reflect 18% (if it's a card for white balancing) - may not be spectrally neutral (if it's designed for exposure) - or it may be both (eg WhiBal cards).

[Inkanyezi]

As Colin states, the brighter the target, within boundaries, better data for balancing. That's the idea of the WhiBal, and why it has I think about 70 % reflectance. Of course using a really neutral grey card is just the same, provided you set compensation to about +1 when shooting it. But the WhiBal will provide good data when introduced somewhere in the shot when correctly exposed. A grey card will be rather dark in such a shot and will not provide as much data for balancing.

I often shoot jpeg and set white balance with a white target that I shoot at +1 compensation. Works for me. My target is cut out from a milk container that does not deviate very much from neutral. When I compare with the WhiBal, tones are just a tiny tad warmer when set with the milk container. I think photography is not an exact science at all levels, but more like an art.

[GrahamS]

I like to photograph a card any time skin tones are important. That's because it's easier to get them right when the white balance is nailed and because the software that I use makes it easy to select the ideal white balance if I have photographed a reference card. If doing that is practical, great. If not, I do my best to get the best skin tones without use of the card.

I go with Mike on this one. When shooting in the studio or outdoors under constant lighting conditions I include a grey card in the first frame which I use as a reference in LR to set the white balance. I don't use it for setting exposure as I may have with film as I now have a histogram right in front of me!

[DanK]

Glenn wrote:

I hope that I haven't rained on anyone's parade, but WB targets are not a one-stop fail-safe solution.

I agree. Then again, looking for fail-safe one-stop solutions in any aspect of photography is probably foolish. In this case, as in pretty much all others, a WB card gives us information, and the rest is up to us. I don't consider a whiBal a fail-safe, but I do find it a tremendously valuable tool, and I would replace mine immediately if it got lost.

I am careful to place the whiBal in the lighting for which I want a neutral WB. I then use that information just as a starting point. It is often fine. Sometimes it isn't. For example, I find that even under uniform lighting, many flower shots are more pleasing if I go to a WB slightly warmer than neutral.

[Glenn NK]

For example, I find that even under uniform lighting, many flower shots are more pleasing if I go to a WB slightly warmer than neutral.

+1.