I have never noticed that before as I am usually working on raw images, but now I have a jpg and want to adjust the white balance and am noticing a bug.
When I use the pipette to pick a color for the white balance correction, the slider for the color temperature does not move, it stays at the default center position. The color temperature in the image is changing correctly. The problem is, it is impossible to make any adjustments to the automatic white balance that is based on the pipette.If I decide that I want the image a bit cooler or warmer, the slider will always jump back to the default position.
I set the colour to the white glass āpetalsā and then moved the slider and it still where it was moved to!?
However, if I then use the pipette again to restore colour the slider doesnāt move to reflect the change in āTemperatureā, which is ānonsenseā isnāt it!?
Thatās the way that it seems to work, if I reset the White Balance using the pipette the slider remains in its previous position unless I start to move it manually when it will ādiscoverā the position and set the temperature of the image appropriately!?
Yes, it is not consistent at all. When you take a raw file and use the Pipette, the temperature slider will change. But with jpgs, it does not. It is completely independent of the pipette. And this is a problem, since the Pipette is a good starting point, but what if I would like my picture just to be a tad warmer? I cannot do it, as the slider is still in the default position. It seems to be a bug to me, someone forgot to relate the Pipette with the slider.
I believe this is all working as intended. White balancing is different for RAW and RGB images. This is explained in the manual, more or less - though the behavior of the sliders needs to be more clear than it is. I remember someone arguing that āTemperatureā is the wrong label for the RGB slider - but DxO decided to keep things as they are.
If you want the picture to be a tad warmer, why canāt you manually adjust the blue/yellow slider? (You might have to turn the pipette off first. Is that the problem?)
Not on my version of DxPL(Win) I can use the pipette and I can use the slider at any time but the slider certainly does not track the pipette with JPGs but does with RAWs!
Yes, the slider works independently. I can use it. My point is, that there is no connection to the Pipette.
If I use the pipette to change the white balance, and I think, this is a good starting point, but based from this starting point, I just want it a little warmer, then this is NOT possible with jpgs. Yes, I can use the slider, but I have no idea where that starting point from the pipette was, as there is no number, nothing. So I have to find that same spot manually by trial and error. Basically, the pipette is only usable if you accept that automatic value, any fine tuning becomes impossible. And with the raw files, this is possible. It does not matter if the raw white balance is technically a different thing, this is just a question of the user interface, no hocus pocus or rocket science degree needed.
Please try it out yourself, you will see that the current behavior is not user friendly, consistent and logical at all. It just makes the processing unnecessarily difficult.
@maderafunk Sorry for misunderstanding the problem albeit my write up was correct.
I thought you could not actually move the slider rather than the fact that there was absolutely no correspondence between the two, pipette and slider, for JPGs!
So having set the white balance via the pipette the movement of the slider is with respect to its own starting point which has not been adjusted by the pipette selection, i.e. the slider is starting from its original reference point not the adjusted pipette selected point!
So you have an either or situation, you cannot use the slider to fine tune the pipette selection with JPGs!! Check the manual to see if it makes that clear and then raise a support request!
Ah, I understand the problem now. Yes, thatās frustrating! I wish it worked the way you propose. Unfortunately, the latest manual says only that you can use either the color picker or the slider. They clearly donāt work in tandem, and the manual should say so. I agree with raising a support request. In the meantime, a workaround would be to use the pipette to pick what will be treated as gray, close the pipette tool, export the image to TIFF or JPEG, then load that image and make fine adjustments as you want. Or, add warmth or coolness using FilmPackās adjustable filters instead of the color temperature slider (thatās what I usually do). Not great to have to work around the problem, but hopefully not something you have to do often.
Just for completion, this is stated in the manual:
Fine-tuning the white balance of a RAW file
However you choose to initially correct your images for white balance ā via pre-established settings or the eyedropper, you can fine-tune the
corrections using the Color temperature and Tint sliders. The Color temperature slider has a range of 2,000 Ā°K to 50,000 Ā°K, and can often
be combined with the Tint slider to remove residual colorcasts.
When you select a JPEG or TIFF file in the Image Browser to set the white balance, the RAW white balance palette changes automatically to
the RGB white balance palette, in which a simplified Color temperature slider is available in addition to the color picker. Strictly speaking, it is
not possible nor recommended to set the white balance for a JPEG or TIFF file, since the white balance has already been established by in-
camera processing. Therefore, any modification in one tonal range will produce imbalances in other tonal ranges: if we correct the midtone
greys, then highlight greys or low-key greys will inevitably suffer a slight colored hue. You can use either the color picker (eyedropper ā see
above) or a dedicated slider, both available in the advanced settings (OS X), to move from cooler (blue) tones to warmer (yellow) tones and
vice-versa.
So they clearly state that possibility of fine tuning for raws, but for no reason, it has not been implemented for jpgs.
By the way, the French manual PDF has around 50MB, while th English manual has 90MB. I wonder whatās the difference, usually English sentences are much shorter than French sentencesā¦
@maderfunk although they state that you can use one or the other, plus the fact that you shouldnāt use either for JPG and TIFF, it doesnāt state the behaviour we actually experience exactly, other than covering it somewhat obtusely by stating one OR the other!?
Neither does it state why they effectively work completely independently!?
In ACDSee you get an āAutoā function and the pipette and both cause the sliders, i.e. āTemperatureā, āTintā and āStrengthā sliders, to align with the āAutoā and āpipetteā function (plus a raft of other functions)!
Iāve never been in trouble with the Law (hoping not to tempt fate with that statement) in either England or France to know!!
This must be related to the way the PDFs are generated. After I edited my copies of both the EN and FR manuals in order to fix a few quirks, they are now both as small as 11 MB.
using the slider only
I could grab it with the mouse and set it to the desired cold-warm-balance
and then after fine tune with the keyboard cursor in 10K increments
starting with the picker (also holding down + āhoveringā) I could set the new whitepoint,
but then using the slider (also positioning somewhere) resets the pickerās setting
yes, they are independent tools (either / or)
so ā¦
when to start with the picker to get the new whitepoint
then export as already proposed by @Egregius
(resulting in a new starting point)
activate the slider and use the keyboard cursor to fine tune in 10K increments
I did it again using the online editor at smallpdf.com (see also ilovepdf.com). Upload, possibly edit and export as compressed PDF. It took some time but the size of both files is now under 10 MB.
But exporting an intermediate jpg with additional loss of quality just for the white balance is really no proper alternative, when dxo could just implement the white balance the same way as they do for raw. Itās basically one line of code that they can copy and paste.
Iād also like to see the pipette and slider work cooperatively, but why do you think itās one line of code or an easy fix? RAW and RGB white balancing/temperature settings are completely different by their very definition, despite being labeled similarly in the GUI.
ā¦ thatās right. JPEG is an 8bit output format.
So why donāt you want to do colour corrections on a 16bit TIFF file instead ā for the time been?
But I imagine, DxO needs to review the tool when implementing softproof for RGB images.
Coming Soon
ā¢ Paper and Ink Simulation for Soft Proofing;
ā¢ DxO Wide Gamut working color space for RGB images (currently only works on RAW files).
It does not matter if the algorithms for raw and jpg are different. It is just a question of the user interface.
When you use the pipette, the algorithm will calculate a value X for the white balance correction. When you use the slider, the value from that slider will also be transformed to a value X for the white balance correction. So one value X from the pipette or from the slider would be the same, they just need to be connected in the user interface.
The line of code would be something like this:
Dear Mr Slider, please move your behind to the position that will return X.
@Wolfgang and how does that work-around work for a batch of images? It does not, as I cannot just copy the white balance from one image to the other. Iād have to repeat that intermediate exporting step for each image. Iād rather use a different software altogether that is properly designed.
I appreciate the ideas for a work around. But my intention was rather to make dxo aware of this design flaw with the hope that they will fix this, before users will abandon their software completely.
