How do you set your white balance during a studio shoot?

I know there is a variety of ways - from the pringles can, to the gray card, to the eye dropper in Photoshop levels, but how do you do it and why?

Thanks!
Wes

Most studio strobes are daylight balanced. So you would set your white balance to the daylight setting and go nuts.

Filters, umbrellas and other modifiers can change the balance somewhat. If you want "accurate" WB in those situations you can shoot a Macbeth color card in the setup you will use for the shoot and then use that to white balance the RAW files in post.

Ultimately it will depend on what your setup and lighting looks like.

Do you find that better than a plain old 18% gray card? And here I thought it was just another tragedy by willie the shake.

Hi Wes,

Before I start..I would recommend that you post this in the Studio and Lighting Forum. Steve, myself, and many other studio shooters use that forum. The more activity the better.

To answer your question, I now use Profoto 7 battery pack and strobes. The wb is set for 5200k, so I usually set my camera for this color temperature. I use a color meter to take background readings so I can make sure the color temp is the same.

I do this to make my post processing steps easier because the scene has consistent wb.

Loren

Do you find that better than a plain old 18% gray card? And here I thought it was just another tragedy by willie the shake.

Well, an 18% grey card is for exposure, it was never meant for color balancing. It's not true grey, and it changes color balance under different lighting conditions.

I moved this thread to Studio & Lighting...

If you're going to the trouble of setting up lights, then I'd do a custom white balance and/or shoot in RAW. It only takes a couple of seconds. I think some cameras work better with grey cards and some with white (like a regular piece of paper, like you'd print a letter on).

You could always get one of the white/grey/black cards (http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/HL6100.html?ac.cat.CatTreeSearch.detail=y&type=SPDSEARCH)and set your white balance and levels with the eyedroppers in Photoshop if you're shooting in RAW. Take the first shot with this in front of the subject, then go ahead and shoot and do your adjustments later. This will give you very consistent results.

I can certainly apreciate you're wanting information on how to get a good WB, but if you've seen any of my work, you soon realize I have no respect or regard for accurate color... ;)

That being said, I really do make an effort to establish a fairly good WB as a starting point. With my DSLRs, I don't custom balance, but find the general catagories (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, etc.) are close enough.

I too, use a gretagmacbeth color checker chart (http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/index/products/products_colorcheckers/products_colorchecker-charts/products_colorchecker.htm) and include it in the first few shots of any given lighting setup.

This is not to say I try very hard to correct the color balance in my images, but at least I have a point of reference if I need it...

Do you find that better than a plain old 18% gray card?

An 18% gray card is much better than nothing in a studio setting, but is primarily used to establish exposure. As a point of color reference it falls VERY short and would only help you (maybe) correctly show that one gray.

BTW, if you want to see what card hardcore digital shooters use now, check this out:

http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/index/products/products_colorcheckers/products_colorchecker-charts/products_colorchecker-sg.htm

140 color patches! IMHO, that's kind of overkill. For my purposes, the old 24 square card works well enough. But then again, I'm not shooting critical high-resolution studio product shots for a big budget catalog client... :)

I use a QP card. This has gray, white and black. Many raw image conversion software, and wb software, have a click wb designed to work with the gray. Or you can open the picture in PS and use either levels or curves. Select the gray eye dropper and click on the gray part. This should eliminate most color casts. The white and black are good for adjusting contrast.

I use the qp card in the first shot. Then I click balance in my raw conversion software, fine tune, and apply it to the rest of the images with that same setup. What I like about this method is it's easy and it gets me in the ballpark (good enough for gvmnt work).

It also eliminates color casts that may be reflected onto your subject. This is why I prefer this over setting the camera based on the lights temp rating. Your camera's manual temp setting can vary from external meters. I've seen that the temp will vary between brands and makes.

Like Steve, I think the gretag mc. card is overkill. Plus, I usually like to make the skin tones slightly warmer anyway.

Hi Wes,

Before I start..I would recommend that you post this in the Studio and Lighting Forum. Steve, myself, and many other studio shooters use that forum. The more activity the better.

To answer your question, I now use Profoto 7 battery pack and strobes. The wb is set for 5200k, so I usually set my camera for this color temperature. I use a color meter to take background readings so I can make sure the color temp is the same.

I do this to make my post processing steps easier because the scene has consistent wb.

Loren

Loren thanks for getting this in the right forum. I didn't think about setting the camera like you said - but I don't think the d100 can do that anyway. How do you like the Profoto set up?

An 18% gray card is much better than nothing in a studio setting, but is primarily used to establish exposure. As a point of color reference it falls VERY short and would only help you (maybe) correctly show that one gray.

BTW, if you want to see what card hardcore digital shooters use now, check this out:

http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/index/products/products_colorcheckers/products_colorchecker-charts/products_colorchecker-sg.htm

140 color patches! IMHO, that's kind of overkill. For my purposes, the old 24 square card works well enough. But then again, I'm not shooting critical high-resolution studio product shots for a big budget catalog client... :)

Steve, Went to the site and downloaded the little video "how to" Very good information. How would you use that card if you are shooting raw? Don't you have to convert from raw to get the use of the eye droppers?

Thanks,
Wes

I use a QP card. This has gray, white and black. Many raw image conversion software, and wb software, have a click wb designed to work with the gray. Or you can open the picture in PS and use either levels or curves. Select the gray eye dropper and click on the gray part. This should eliminate most color casts. The white and black are good for adjusting contrast.

I use the qp card in the first shot. Then I click balance in my raw conversion software, fine tune, and apply it to the rest of the images with that same setup. What I like about this method is it's easy and it gets me in the ballpark (good enough for gvmnt work).

It also eliminates color casts that may be reflected onto your subject. This is why I prefer this over setting the camera based on the lights temp rating. Your camera's manual temp setting can vary from external meters. I've seen that the temp will vary between brands and makes.

Like Steve, I think the gretag mc. card is overkill. Plus, I usually like to make the skin tones slightly warmer anyway.

I did just the same process this morning - except I don't have the QP card. I did see something like what you mention in my research. Actually today was the 1st time I used the raw conversion software (CS) to its fullest potential, rather than converting and using the other tools (curves, color balance, etc) It went much quicker and of course was consistent. I think I will roll with this process for a while.

Thanks!
Wes

The best tutorial on color correction I've come across is chapter 2 of Kevin Ames great book, Adobe PS CS: the Art of Photographing Women (btw, a very good book for regular portrait work, too)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764543180/104-3618939-2780713?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

He converts his RAW files to 16bit TIFF, but PSD files would be fine, too. Using the white, black, and gray patches, he takes 3x3 pixel samples with the eye-dropper tool, then uses the info palette and levels to make adjustments and remove color casts.

The best part is he automates the entire process so it is not tedious to apply the steps to large groups of files...

It went much quicker and of course was consistent. I think I will roll with this process for a while.

Thanks!
Wes

Hi Wes, I think this is a very key point. Prior to using this method I always felt odd giving people prints from the same shoot that had slightly different color casts. Real or not, it bothered me.

Mike

Loren thanks for getting this in the right forum. I didn't think about setting the camera like you said - but I don't think the d100 can do that anyway. How do you like the Profoto set up?
I really like the Profoto setup. I bought my used from BH and it was much much cheaper than buying it new.

With a power pack you are able to adjust the lights more precisely than having it plugged into the ac powersource directly. Already, I have been able to do four jobs quickly because of the new setup. It´s also nice to have consistent color temperature with every flash...
Most of my photography in studio relies on accurate color temp so I go a little further than most to confirm WB.


I would recommend that you look at the D100 because I do believe that you can set the color temp. manually. Even without my color meter I set the wb to 5000 during the daytime to replicate slide film.

Welcome aboard!!