"School of Portraiture" - Lesson 04 - Initial post-processing - Part 1

[Antonio Correia]

The first time I used a WB card was inside of a boat, near the machines where the light was artificial but I did it another way, with a different procedure.

1. I switched off the Auto-focusing and I focused the WB card at hand.
Only the card was inside the frame, nothing else.
Focusing at hand was imperative as the camera doesn't see any contrast and doesn't focuses at all.

2. I opened the Custom WB in the camera and I "told" it to set the WB to the picture previously taken.

3. Then I shot and I got a correct white balance for the scene.

I rarely use the card

This was before and after. Direct RAW images !

The problem with WB is that each of us sees the images in different computers under different light conditions, under ... etc. and when we print, to overcome this problem, we must have the profiles set and so on. A complex business where I am a complete zero by the way, I am afraid

At the end, the use of a gray card may be useful if you have a static procedure and see your pictures only in calibrated monitors, print in the same printer over and over and have everything working smoothly like Colin does.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Antonio,

Using a gray card to set a custom white balance can work just fine - but - it's no faster than doing it in PP - and often in PP folks want to tweak the skintones to be slightly on the warm side anyway (so may as well do the whole lot all at the same time). The other more important issue though is situations where for example you have mixed lighting (eg ambient & on camera-fill flash) ... there's just no way to get the same proportion of light on the gray card for the reference shot as you're going to have on the subject for the "real" shot.

PS: When you set a manual WB you need to switch off the AF (as you mentioned), but no need to focus - in fact, OOF is actually better (it averages things out better). If you're working only with ambient light then an Expodisc is another option (can do exposure too).

The problem with WB is that each of us sees the images in different computers under different light conditions, under ... etc.

I don't believe that the colour of the ambient light affects on screen colours too much (levels are a different thing though) - but the bottom line is that if you're not working from a profiled monitor then the colours that you're seeing (and thus the adjustments that you're making to images) may be completely different to what others see. Hopefully with a calibrated / profiled monitor we're all singing from the same song sheet

[Antonio Correia]

Hi Antonio, Using a gray card ... ... may be completely different to what others see. Hopefully with a calibrated / profiled monitor we're all singing from the same song sheet

Early morning and I have already learned something.

Thank you Colin

[Colin Southern]

Part II of Lesson 4 continues here.