White balance - without grey white?

DxO PhotoLab
1

Hi all,

I was wondering how to achieve a perfect white balance, for a photo which doesn’t have either grey or white areas. (E.g. a colored sky, a blue sky with green trees etc).

Thanks!

2

Essentially impossible.

Professional photographers take a grey card with them and shoot a frame under the same lighting conditions, then they measure the colour temperature on the test shot and apply it to the shot without the grey card.

Otherwise, you can only make a subjective adjustment.

Or, if you can find and afford one, you use a colour temperature meter, measure the ambient lighting, note the temperature and set your camera’s manual WB to it.

3

Robert,

you could find an area with close to 127/127/127 and use that.

Sigi

4

But if that pixel is not meant to be neutral, the result will be discoloured

5

But it is at least a starting point and worth a try.

6

Thanks all!

7

…I’d try all of the WB presets, chose the one that fits best and then adjust temperature and tint until it looks right…

1 Like
8

Or open the photo in another editor with Auto White Balance and copy the result (some tools are quite good, especially the ones that incorporate machine learning and date + time of day + location).

9

I’ve tried that with FastRawViewer - - but the results (from that tool) did not seem to translate well (?)

John M

10

Chaque logiciel semble avoir sa propre échelle de balance des blancs.
Par exemple la valeur de balance des blancs “auto” d’un boîtier n’est pas la même (TC et teinte) dans PL ou dans Photoshop/LR/ACR.
Avec parfois des déclages de valeurs importants. Donc copier les valeurs d’un logiciel sur l’autre n’est pas une bonne idée.
Par contre, même si les valeurs sont différentes, le résultat en colorimétrie est très proche !
Etonnant, non ?

Each software seems to have its own white balance scale.
For example the value of white balance “auto” of a camera is not the same (TC and tint) in PL or in Photoshop / LR / ACR.
Sometimes with significant variations in values. So copying values from one software to another is not a good idea.
On the other hand, even if the values are different, the result in colorimetry is very close!
Surprising, isn’t it?

1 Like