Lightroom 3.2 White Balance

[roguewave]

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I've been asked to put together a simplified workflow for young photography students relating to WB issues in LR 3.2. If possible, I'd like to collect a series of workflows from members to articulate both the efficacy & variety of various workflows. Nothing too esoteric. These are High School students and some older folks taking a New York State funded set of photography instructional courses for personal use. The WB issue seems to be a difficult one for the instructors to make simple. Any help would be very much appreciated.

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[chris_tribble]

Ben - this is a tough call as I'm not sure there are that many "issues" in LR3.2 WB. Assuming this is for people with basic cameras and no fancy WhiBals etc, my thoughts are:

 

1/ AWB sometimes takes you a long way to where you need to go.

2/ If you're not happy with AWB set an appropriate manual WB in camera (daylight / tungsten etc)

3/ If WB is going to be critical it can be helpful to shoot a white piece of paper in the ambient light - you can use this as a reference point and apply to other images as a batch

4/ In LR, if you like what you see, fine. If you don't, try Auto WB from the menu. If that doesn't work try the menu options (daylight / shade etc). If that doesn't work try the eye-dropper on a white or neutral element in the scene. If there aren't any, use your reference shot of the white paper and see what applying that WB setting does to the image.

5/ remember, unless you're doing product photography where accurate colour's essential, it's mainly down to what looks OK!

 

- and always remember - have fun...

[spylaw4]

Ben - this is a tough call as I'm not sure there are that many "issues" in LR3.2 WB. Assuming this is for people with basic cameras and no fancy WhiBals etc, my thoughts are:

 

1/ AWB sometimes takes you a long way to where you need to go.

2/ If you're not happy with AWB set an appropriate manual WB in camera (daylight / tungsten etc)

3/ If WB is going to be critical it can be helpful to shoot a white piece of paper in the ambient light - you can use this as a reference point and apply to other images as a batch

4/ In LR, if you like what you see, fine. If you don't, try Auto WB from the menu. If that doesn't work try the menu options (daylight / shade etc). If that doesn't work try the eye-dropper on a white or neutral element in the scene. If there aren't any, use your reference shot of the white paper and see what applying that WB setting does to the image.

5/ remember, unless you're doing product photography where accurate colour's essential, it's mainly down to what looks OK!

 

- and always remember - have fun...

 

+1

[roguewave]

Chris & Brian, thanks for your response. It's amazing how this issue has created such conflict among the instructors. I asked them to explain their workflow to me so that I could help them simplify their instruction.