White balance tricks?

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Dan
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Any way to make this easier on myself? Got a particular annoying set to process and I'm clutching at straws..

Wouldn't it be nice to match skin tones across multiple photos..

Coloured lighting, coloured clothing - even when you white balance a 'white' it tends to be on the warmer side.

The scenario is a performed play, with multiple coloured and changing lighting throughout scenes and across stage.
 
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A bit like the advice........................I would not have started from here ;)

IMO if taking subjects under a mixture of lighting situations where the intent is to make sure the WB as close as possible in PP, then the use of grey card shot first under each situation means an easier AFAIK in post production. I ma sure there are those with greater PP skills who can address how to minimise variation in "post" where such a WB adjustment shot has been missed out.

HTH for the future.

PS though ever used on odd occasions but I keep my WhiBal card in the camera bag .....it came in handy on the Hindhead Tunnel walk where the lighting gave an aweful colour cast.
 
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A bit like the advice........................I would not have started from here ;)

IMO if taking subjects under a mixture of lighting situations where the intent is to make sure the WB as close as possible in PP, then the use of grey card shot first under each situation means an easier AFAIK in post production. I ma sure there are those with greater PP skills who can address how to minimise variation in "post" where such a WB adjustment shot has been missed out.

HTH for the future.

The lighting can change from one moment to the next, sometimes even just rainbows colour, the lighting often differs across the stage, there is no pause throughout the performance.

I'm not sure how I could use a white balance card in this scenario. (Oh and I forgot to mention this in the OP! sorry)
 
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Here's a glimpse, I'm almost to the end - but it comes up often enough. Sometimes worse
 
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maybe try a little tuition on a course about photo editing from a professional would really help you
i remember i commented to go as a second shooter for a year to get your hand in before you turned pro
same applys to picture editing it takes time to get to a professional standard.
your a bit like me its not how fancy the camera you use its the idiot half inch behind the viewfinder
that makes the difference
let us know how you overcome the problem as im sure we have all came across the same problem
 
I went backwards through the set this morning with the same WB across every image and I'm learning to accept intentional colour casts and not fixing them! Everything with the white light looks good.
 
I went backwards through the set this morning with the same WB across every image and I'm learning to accept intentional colour casts and not fixing them! Everything with the white light looks good.
If these are for the web, then as long as you think they are right, then that is good enough, remember everyone is looking at something different to you online, plus your not necessarily looking at white in these images, as you say most things will have some form of colour cast from lighting etc.
 
If these are for the web, then as long as you think they are right, then that is good enough, remember everyone is looking at something different to you online, plus your not necessarily looking at white in these images, as you say most things will have some form of colour cast from lighting etc.

They are also for print for the walls of the school, and for parents.

It didn't help that the first few photos were heavily cast in blue, if I auto that or try to adjust for white then it completely removes that cast (and mood).

This also put me in the wrong frame of mind going forward...

What I need to do in future is find scenes with white light and correct for that, then copy that across everything and accept the colour was intentional.
 
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I wouldn't worry, they've used coloured lighting for effect, take it out and it won't look right to them. And depending on what lighting they've used it may be impossible to "correct" anyway.

Beat me to it :)

If it looks good its fine - same principle I apply to 1st Dance shots under DJ's lighting where its either impossible or just daft to 'correct' it all

You wouldn't set a sunrise/sunset to 'white' would you, some things, like deliberately coloured scenes as here, don't need 'correcting' at all

Dave
 
I wouldn't worry, they've used coloured lighting for effect, take it out and it won't look right to them. And depending on what lighting they've used it may be impossible to "correct" anyway.

your correct
it may be impossible to correct
 
@dancook

Bearing in mind, as discussed & advised above, that the lighting is part of the 'complete image and its mood...' I found this thread over at LuLa that looks like it might have some value when the need is there to make batch corrections/adjustments (of smaller groups of images under the closest lighting conditions) when PP'ing in Lightroom
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=128742.0

HTH perhaps :)
 
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@dancook

Bearing in mind, as discussed & advised above, that the lighting is part of the 'complete image and its mood...' I found this thread over at LuLa that looks like it might have some value when the need is there to make batch corrections/adjustments (of smaller groups of images under the closest lighting conditions) when PP'ing in Lightroom
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=128742.0

HTH perhaps :)

Thanks, I know how to batch sync WB and that of you batch sync it on auto the others will go auto not match white balance.

That seems to be the jist of the thread.
 
Horrible but effective:

On raw files in LR use the WB dropper and set the white balance off the white of an eyeball. People's eyeballs do vary but not much. You'd have to do it for each image individually but it's pretty quick.

If you then need a consistent adjustment applied to all of those images, you can either (1) modify the camera calibration profile, the HSL sliders, the split toning or the tone curve to get what you want and sync, or (2) copy all of those images to tiffs (or whatever). Then on the non-raw files the WB sliders change mode; you could sync (e.g.) a -5 warmth adjustment across all your tiffs.

Told you it was nasty.
 
Horrible but effective:

On raw files in LR use the WB dropper and set the white balance off the white of an eyeball. People's eyeballs do vary but not much. You'd have to do it for each image individually but it's pretty quick.

If you then need a consistent adjustment applied to all of those images, you can either (1) modify the camera calibration profile, the HSL sliders, the split toning or the tone curve to get what you want and sync, or (2) copy all of those images to tiffs (or whatever). Then on the non-raw files the WB sliders change mode; you could sync (e.g.) a -5 warmth adjustment across all your tiffs.

Told you it was nasty.

I do use the eyeballs, and for the rest, thanks but I hope I never have to take it that far :D

I've got what I find generally the most annoying WB scenario coming up, where they have sets of LED lights with individual RGB sliders.

To the naked eye, the 'white light' all sliders turned up does not look as I'd expect white to look - but i'll grey card off that and use it for everything I shoot regardless.

if anything looks weird thereafter, it will be their lighting system.

Previous I've asked them to shoot rehearsal in white light, but now I'll let them go nuts with colour if they want - and that's exactly what they will get when the photos come.

Although their coloured lights do make AF more difficult and in general lowers the light available pushing the ISO.
 
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Some cameras will let you scroll trough the WB options in live view, obviously not as good as a grey card but if theres odd lighting it's a handy starting point.
 
I had the play rehearsal today,

The good news is that they had forgot the LED lights, so had to use the lights rigged up on the ceiling.

I set my WB to incandescent lighting, and took a few shots of the grey card at left, right and centre of the stage - whilst they all differ - it's far better than what I was getting with their LED lighting :D yay

already started to process them, a single WB to rule them all and it's so much easier than before with LEDs

Not only that be the black ceilings aren't as lit up, and there's practically no tidying up to do of the shots...

51751360_10161691933130227_8626986768056451072_n.jpg


51611133_10161691933140227_5429278634298834944_n.jpg


52536869_10161691933105227_496986832077062144_n.jpg
 
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Oh and one last thing this photo provides a pretty good representation of how the lights falls and varies across stage :D but I quite like it, has a 'theatre' feel to it.

NOTE this is not the led lights which vary in green/pink cast which make life far more difficult, than just a cool right and warm left.

51832524_10161692225835227_1546954895402205184_o.jpg
 
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I hate LED lighting with a passion, particularly for theater work..the colours are crap the white balance is all over the place and if you're not careful you get banding.
It's even worse when they mix the lighting...You can't see it in the theater but you sure can in the pics!
 
My fave Wedding venue has an orangery for Weddings where the wall on one side is tungsten lit and around 2.8k while the other side is daylight and can be anything at all, so on my widest shots I have a nice WB on my B&G in the middle, with blue people on the left and orange ones on the right lol

Just makes the shots more interesting to me :)

Dave
 
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