July 21 Photography: Correcting White Balance

Hello! Hope you are enjoying the photography focus this week! My challenge involves photo editing, so we can put down the camera for today and take a look at a few quick ways to get you a lovely white balanced image. So for this one … you will need to go through the photos you already have and find an image with a colorcast.

*Note: This is a long post because I tried to give tips for a variety of different programs. Please feel free to skip to the area where your program is listed rather than reading all of the details! These are quick easy color adjustment tips without getting too complicated and too far down the rabbit hole of color correction.


Lightroom:

I have a photo from a trip to the zoo where we went from an indoor touch pool with fluorescent or tungsten lights to an outdoor shady setting, but I failed to set my camera’s WB to shade which resulted in a overly cool/blue photo. I took two shots before I realized my error. In Lightroom this is super easy to correct. In the Develop module simply grab the White Balance Selector tool in your Basic panel. It looks like an eyedropper.



When you hover over parts of your image the details will reveal values for each of the RGB color ranges. You need to click on area that is neutral (a shade of grey). Ideally the R G and B values should be close to each other. But sometimes this is tricky because when you have an image with a strong colorcast it can throw off the values, including your neutrals. I utilize both my memory and the values on screen to come up with a best estimate for what to select. For example when there is concrete in my image I know that is intended to be a shade of grey and will likely get me a properly balanced image if I select it. While I hover over the photo, my values for the concrete sidewalk area sampled in the bottom right of the image are: R 82.5 G 84.9 and B 92.5. After I click this area with the White Balance Selector Tool these values will be almost identical.



The best part is you can undo your selection, grab the White Balance Selector tool again, and try until you find a white balance correction that works for you.

Alternatively, you can try the As Shot drop down option and see if any of these work for your photo. Depending on your camera and whether you shot jpeg or raw, you will have different options available to you.



The temperature slider will allow you to tweak your white balance setting to your liking. Sliding left will cool down your image and sliding right will warm it up.

The tint slider is most useful when you have fluorescent or tungsten lighting influencing your image. It can help you calm down overly pink or green casts.

Here is my color corrected image with just one click of the white balance tool!




Photoshop:

If you use Photoshop to edit your images, you could use Image>Adjustments>Color Balance but knowing which sliders to adjust isn’t the most intuitive method.



I would use Image>Adjustments>Curves instead. Just like in Lightroom you have white balance eyedropper tools available to you.

TIP: If you open your Info panel, you will be able to hover over parts of your image to see the R G and B values for each area. A neutral grey will have the R G and B values almost identical, so look for areas where the range of these values is closest. In the image below I hovered over the bright yellow near the top left and you can see how different the RGB values are for a color that is clearly not neutral.



At the bottom of the Curves window are a set of three eyedroppers: one for setting the black point, the grey point and the white point. You can set all three or simply one. Setting the black point can overly darken your image so be careful. You have to find the darkest point of your image and once you click on it, it sets that value as the pure black point.



Tip: For those that want to delve a bit deeper into this panel … I just want to point out that you can set these values yourself if you’d like. By default the black point will be pure black with R G and B values each set to 0 (or pure black). Double click on the eyedropper that you want to custom set the value for and enter a new value. Just make sure the R G and B values are all equal. So for example you get set the black value from a default of R 0, G 0, B 0 to R 15, G 15 and B 15.

I chose to set only the grey point for my image. I grabbed a neutral grey from the stainless steel on the machine for setting my grey point. Here is my final image with just one click of the grey point eyedrop selector.





Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for Photoshop or Elements users:

Another quick way to correct your white balance is to use the free plugin that comes with Photoshop and Elements : Adobe Camera Raw aka ACR. Find this by selecting Filter>Camera Raw Filter. This is the same engine that runs Lightroom and I am a long time lover of using ACR for its ease of use and tweaking via all those glorious sliders. Along the top is a bar of icons and you will find the White Balance Tool as the third eyedropper from the left. Hovering over an area of your photo will reveal the RGB values, which are located just under the histogram on the top of the panel along the right side of your image. Chose a grey or neutral area to properly set your white balance and just like in Lightroom, you can tweak the temp and tint sliders or use the As Shot drop down box. CTRL Z will undo your last action and allow you to try again if you are unhappy with the results.



You should be able to open both jpegs and raw files in ACR. You may have to google your platform and software version to find out how to open your jpegs in this plug in.

Elements:

I’m not an Elements user but you should be able to adjust colorcasts by choosing Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove Color Cast and a window will pop up with an eyedropper to allow you to click on a neutral area to adjust the white balance.

Pic Monkey:

And finally for those of you not using Photoshop, Lightroom or Elements … you can use Pic Monkey, a free software program, to try to correct colorcasts. Go to the Colors panel and select the Neutral picker. You will see a grey color swatch by default in the panel. Once you start hovering over different areas of your photo, a side by side comparsion of your selection and the default grey will be viewable. This will show you the color of the area you are looking at. I was surprised at how “moss green” my pixels were when I hovered over a large rock that I knew should be grey.



I clicked on that area as my neutral grey and then to save the change, I clicked on Apply. Here is the result:



Your challenge is to take a photo that you have been avoiding scrapping because the colors are off and either utilize one of the above methods to correct the white balance or use your own tried and true white balance correction method. If you don’t have a photo with a colorcast, you can take a photo that needs some warming up or cooling down and tweak the temperature. You can even get creative and artsy and purposely create a colorcast to give your photo a funky vibe. Just find some way to change up the colors in your photo in a creative way! Have fun and I’d love to see your “before” image as well as your edited photo on a finished layout!

THE RULES: Please follow The Lilypad Gallery Guidelines: Layouts must contain at least 50% TLP products (Current or retired product from current designers; templates count as 15%.) Uploads must be less than 250K. List all credits; no off-site linking allowed.

 

As always THANK YOU Bev for your Artisan tips ... very much appreciated!

 

It's tough to do when you don't have white or grey! And when your camera casts a different color each time for the same event. Oh boy that is tough! Trying to go for the true wall color in each one was a great idea Bev. Kudos to you for color balancing so many photos on one page!

I wonder if doing a batch run would help them all color balance? In LR - you can copy and paste settings to other photos and in ACR - you can open multiple photos at once. Make changes to one photo and apply them to all or some (by selecting them) of the other photos that are open in your ACR window. Does Artisan allow that do you know?

Anyway - love your page, looks like you have a fun and lively family

 

Awesome Timmi! I love that you showed us your before and after too! Such a cute page and that kit is darling! And can I just say ... I love love LOVE her cute haircut. My little girl had that when she was little too. It's my fave haircut on young girls! thanks for playing!

 

oh wow - look at all the detail we can see now! this is such a great example!and i love your page with the dark bckgrd and splashes of stars and glitter !

 

What a little star you have! Beautiful job on the WB too! Love how the after photo pops with color and is so bright! Lovely!!!

 

your photo looks so bright and light after the WB tweaks! love it Sandy!

 

i hope using the droppers makes your work flow faster Karen!