fix white balance

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  • 06-08-2008, 07:21 AM
    Kinz
    fix white balance
    I just got back from the Florida Keys and realized that I took some of my pictures with the wrong camera setting. I've got a Nikon D300 and 1/3 of the photos I took with the white balance setting for incandescent. Is there any way to change it now for Auto or Direct Sunlight? Thanks
  • 06-08-2008, 09:06 AM
    deckcadet
    Re: fix white balance
    Did you shoot RAW or JPEG? If you shot RAW, you can easily change the white balance. You could download nikon ViewNX 1.1, select all the affected files, and apply a white balance change to auto or direct sunlight.

    JPEG would be noticeably more complicated and would require more complicated software.

    I'm surprised that you didn't notice it reviewing the images on the LCD, though. I've found the D300 LCD is very color accurate.
  • 06-08-2008, 05:02 PM
    Kinz
    Re: fix white balance
    I'm suprised I didn't notice too. I will definately be more careful next time. I did get half the pictures with correct exposure, so I guess all isn't lost. And actually, this just gives me an excuse to go back to South Beach where actually most of the photos are bad. I'll try RAW next time. Thanks.
  • 06-08-2008, 07:16 PM
    deckcadet
    Re: fix white balance
    I would suggest you go through with Nikon Capture NX 2 (60 day trial available on the website) or even NX 1.3, if that came with your D300, and try and play around with the color balance and levels and see if you can't get it to the point of salvage. If you can find a good setting that works well, you can save it as a settings file and batch apply it to all the JPEGs and resave them (I'd suggest saving into a new folder in case they don't all work well).
  • 06-08-2008, 07:23 PM
    fx101
    Re: fix white balance
    You'll probably get better results in photoshop than in NX2 for your jpegs. Use PS' colour balance to get a white object in the image to be pure white (or if not, try to get the colours as neutral as possible) and then use a warming or cooling PS filter to get the image to your desired colour temperature. It won't be perfect, but it's better than nothing.
  • 06-09-2008, 09:50 AM
    Photo-John
    Re: fix white balance
    Shooting with the wrong white balance is the best and most obvious reason to shoot RAW. But there are a lot more powerful and subtle reasons to shoot RAW. For 99% of DSLR shooters, I don't think there's any good reason to shoot JPEGs anymore. RAW offers more flexibility, better potential image quality, and it's not as complicated or time-consuming as it used to be. Get on board the RAW train, Kinz! It's better :D