Color temperature question for the Pros

[cnick6]

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I did some shooting this past Saturday in an indoor setting with banquet room with white walls but heavy warm lighting.  Lightroom 6.7 is doing a fair job of balancing the color temperature but I'm not certain of one obvious question:  Do I remove the yellow warm tones or do I leave it in the picture and work with it?  

 

For example, I know the walls in this room were of a very solid white -- not egg white or some off-white color -- but close to a pure white; however, with the heavy incandescent lightning in the room, the walls ended up looking very warm in my pictures.  In reality, the first 25% [the walls closet to the lights] were heavily yellow, the next 50% were 'warm' and the last 25% was more of an off-white color.

 

I think I'm confusing myself a little because when I balance the color temperature [away from the warm tones] my memory knows that wasn't the correct shot.  

 

So what's real here?  Do you pros leave in the warm tone (as per what our eyes see)  [i.e. reality] or is it acceptable to remove that warm tone and show more of a neutral color balance?

 

PS.  I try to be a purist when it comes to my shots.  I want them to look real and not artificial.  Less is more is usually my motto.  

 

 

Thanks for the help,

-Nick

 

 

[jaapv]

That is entirely up to you and an artistic decision.

In general, colour balance and intensity is a decision by the photographer and not an absolute except in product photography. It will set the mood of the image.

In your case, do you want a warm-and-cosy effect or do you want a cool and clinical atmosphere? Use your sliders and judge the result on your (calibrated!!) screen.

 

Make no mistake: The camera sees the colour as-is, the image as you recall it is tainted by your eye-brain postprocessing and deceiving. Your job is to match reality to your memory.

 

If you really want to learn about colours, read: Real World Color Management by Fraser et al.

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[cnick6]

Thanks Jaap.  From all of the reading I've done on Lightroom and photography in general, I guess I always presumed there was no right or wrong answer.  I generally adjust my settings to a clinical view but then add a slight measure of warmth.  Since I focus mostly on portraits I adjust my pictures for a slight warm touch for natural skin tones.  I don't shoot indoors with this level of lighting very often but the Leica M-P 240 handled it quite well considering I don't [yet] own a flash.  

 

I searched Amazon for the book title you recommended but could only find this one:  Real World Color Management (2nd Edition) 2nd Edition by Bruce Fraser  (Author), Chris Murphy (Author), Fred Bunting (Author)

 

I did find this one under Jeff Schewe:  The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop (2nd Edition)

 

...which I just ordered.  

[jaapv]

Sorry. My fault, Warthog moment, I guess. You have the right one. I'll edit my post. It is available electronically as well.

Most books coming from that group of authors are quite good, for instance Real World Sharpening (not that important if you are using LR, but still) and Jeff Schewe's The Digital Print.

[LocalHero1953]

In photos where people are the main interest, getting the skin tones right is my priority.

 

I don't know what camera you were using, but I find the M240 AWB not too bad, but I will use that or LR's AutoWB as my starting point, checking alternatives sampled from neutral surfaces in the image, then making fine adjustments.

 

I find the SL's AWB is much more likely to be close to getting it right than the M or LR, but still needs adjustment under artificial lighting.

 

I find LR's presets (tungsten, cloudy etc) totally unacceptable in any image!

 

If your lighting was all incandescent (a rarity nowadays in Europe) you were lucky. For such events I often find it's a mixture of fluorescent, halogen, LED, possibly daylight and occasional low powered incandescents for decoration .

 

PS I am an amateur!

Edited October 17, 2016 by LocalHero1953

[jaapv]

I prefer to use the  greycard WB setting under artificial light. It is always too cool, but a little twist to the kelvin slider will have it spot-on.

[cnick6]

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In photos where people are the main interest, getting the skin tones right is my priority.

 

I don't know what camera you were using, but I find the M240 AWB not too bad, but I will use that or LR's AutoWB as my starting point, checking alternatives sampled from neutral surfaces in the image, then making fine adjustments.  I

 

I find LR's presets (tungsten, cloudy etc) totally unacceptable in any image!

 

If your lighting was all incandescent (a rarity nowadays in Europe) you were lucky. For such events I often find it's a mixture of fluorescent, halogen, LED, possibly daylight and occasional low powered incandescent for decoration .

 

Hi Paul,

 

Yes, I would agree with just about everything you said and yes, those LR presets are pretty horrible.  Perhaps we're doing something wrong!  

 

I have a new M-P 240.  I'm also a Leica amateur (picked up my first Leica -- a M7 back in mid-summer.) The M-P is my first digital Leica and I'm still getting use to the DNG format.  My Sony A7R2 puts out incredibly nice JPEGs so I never really need to dabble with any significant post-processing.  I do quick touch-up fixes with very basic image software.  

 

For my Leica shots, I use the Automatic WB feature in LR but I'm noticing that [in strong artificial light] it tends to shift a bit too far.  The "As Shot" WB seems fairly accurate for most of my shots.  So when the Automatic WB fails I then look at the "As Shot" WB to give me that comparison.  This usually gives me a starting range which I then tweak the final temperature from there.  

 

Incandescent lighting is pretty much gone here as well except in older buildings.  We were in a [old] church banquet room that had very strong lightning from the ceiling.  You would think they were recessed flood lights given how strong they were!

 

I'll post a couple of images here in the next day or two.

[cnick6]

I prefer to use the  greycard WB setting under artificial light. It is always too cool, but a little twist to the kelvin slider will have it spot-on.

 

Definitely have been reading about using the grey card.  I never tried but of course I wish I had this past Saturday!  Seems like an easy calibration step too.

[LocalHero1953]

First put the card in the right place.......

This is not easy to do when you have multiple light sources in a scene.

[pgk]

From wiki: "In digital photography, color temperature is sometimes used interchangeably with white balance, which allow a remapping of color values to simulate variations in ambient color temperature." which is a stab at defining something rather more complex reasonably simplistically. The problem that can occur is that there can be areas of colour which are 'uneven' or 'lacking' depending on the characteristics of the light source or sources illuminating the image. Which is a roundabout way of saying that color temperature is going to be an approximation and white balancing can result in odd colours here and there, unless that is you have full control of the lighting used which generally isn't the case except for studio shoots, etc. There is often discussion about colour temperature, white balance and exposure as though they were absolutes which generally they are not. So to answer your question I suggest that you adjust the image so that it gives a 'pleasant but fair' representation of what you saw and want to illustrate, which is of course quite subjective as jaapv stated.

[cnick6]

There is often discussion about colour temperature, white balance and exposure as though they were absolutes which generally they are not. So to answer your question I suggest that you adjust the image so that it gives a 'pleasant but fair' representation of what you saw and want to illustrate, which is of course quite subjective as jaapv stated.

 

Yes that first statement is very true.  I'm a software engineer by day so I am almost always confronted with strict rules -- usually not open to interpretation (or so my bosses keep telling me!)  

 

It's a very hard habit to break.  

[jaapv]

First put the card in the right place.......

This is not easy to do when you have multiple light sources in a scene.

I don't see that as a problem. It does not have to be a grey card. Sometimes I use something neutral in the area of the image that I want to be most correct. A white tablecloth,  a piece of paper or indeed a real grey card. I always carry my Colorchecker Passport. which incorporates a grey card. When I anticipate that the colour is going to be difficult I can even shoot a camera profile -  in some cases the only solution.

[tobey bilek]

Make the people look right unless you want some artistic creation.