RAW and white balance

Question for clarification: If I'm shooting in RAW, do white balancing under water make a difference? I mean, if you can color correct in post production, is there an advantage? My guess is yes, that post production produces more noise...

No. There is no advantage to doing a manual white balance. However, if you picture is underexposed and you fix it in RAW it will add noise because the SW will essentially increase the ISO.

Tom

Question for clarification: If I'm shooting in RAW, do white balancing under water make a difference? I mean, if you can color correct in post production, is there an advantage? My guess is yes, that post production produces more noise...

White balancing doesn't affect the RAW files that a camera records. If you're only shooting in RAW, and not RAW+JPEG, manual white balancing under water is a waste of time.

No. There is no advantage to doing a manual white balance. However, if you picture is underexposed and you fix it in RAW it will add noise because the SW will essentially increase the ISO.

 

Tom

Matt,

RAW rocks for this reason-I love the way I can adjust white balance on a PC after a shoot.

Mind you- part of me still like to get it right in camera at the time of shot.

Think Martin Edge recommends 'Cloudy' setting for underwater shoots.

Tom/Anyone,

Does image grain increase with saturation/brightness/darkness/vibrance settings on RAW?

Best

Dam

Question for clarification: If I'm shooting in RAW, do white balancing under water make a difference? I mean, if you can color correct in post production, is there an advantage?

Generally speaking, I would say that you should not bother to do white balancing underwater. The white balance changes with depth and it would really increase task loading, so to speak, to continually do manual white balancing throughout the dive. That being said, I can see where it could be useful in a few situations. One of those situations was what I experienced while diving in Grand Cayman last week while at Alex Mustard's UW Photography Workshop. We were at Stingray City shooting the sting rays and Alex instructed us to do a manual white balance for that shoot. We were standing in very shallow water which was no more than waist or chest deep water. On my D300, I used the PRE setting to do this, which manually sets the white balance. Alex felt it was best to do a manual white balance setting in the specific situation in which we were shooting.

Ellen

WB (as any other image setting) matters only if you´re doing jpeg processing to the photo. RAW gets unaffected. Any other setting (WB, gamma, sharpening, etc.) is done at the post stage.

As the sensor is daylight balanced, is perhaps a good idea to have a warm filter attached for UW shooting? So you don´t need to add so much red in post...

The only setting that will show in a RAW image is ISO setting (at least in my Nikon). Additional gain is applied to the sensor signal, wich increases noise when you set a higher ISO.

...And of course you have to hit your exposure right...

Best regards

Alejandro

WB (as any other image setting) matters only if you´re doing jpeg processing to the photo. RAW gets unaffected. Any other setting (WB, gamma, sharpening, etc.) is done at the post stage.

As the sensor is daylight balanced, is perhaps a good idea to have a warm filter attached for UW shooting? So you don´t need to add so much red in post...

The only setting that will show in a RAW image is ISO setting (at least in my Nikon). Additional gain is applied to the sensor signal, wich increases noise when you set a higher ISO.

 

...And of course you have to hit your exposure right...

 

Best regards

Alejandro

Although you can certainly set white balance in Post for a RAW photograph, this assumes you have something in the photo to use as a reference point; If there is some sand or white coral, you can do a fairly decent job. I had a situation shooting Manta Rays from above and to the right and couldn't get a good neutral spot in my photo. Tough to white balance that one for sure. Gray scuba tanks are "okay", but not ideal. You can white balance on your hand and that does a pretty decent job (that's an Alex Mustard tip from his Magic Filter video), probably better than a scuba tank. My wife has white fins, so I try to ensure to have her in at least one photo for every depth and reef position for Post processing. She's a good sport

I'm not sure if this white-balancing business isn't over-rated. Why take an 18 percent gray card down with you (or a pair of white fins for that matter)? It's not a product shot that anyone is going to compare the original subject with.

I do all my adjustment of the RAW file by eye so that I get a pleasing-looking result. To those that argue that my pictures don't look real I say, I take white light down with me in the form of strobes so what is reality anyway? If it looks right to me, it is right. It's been working for artists since before the days of Leonardo da Vinci so why not now? Adjust your RAW files so they look good - that's all!

Now that's brought some sense to the WB debate! Thanks John...

Photography is, after all, a subjective art. It always has been with (pre-digital) exponents selecting film emulsions and film speed and darkroom alchemy to manipulate (?) their images. So what's different about tweaking the WB slider in Camera RAW?

Not sure if this makes sense or not, but for me ... I turn OFF auto WB on the camra and set it to a fixed value like flash, sun, cloudy day, etc. And use that value for the entire dive. Why so that as I post process I determine the WB balance for 1 pic and then apply it across other similiar shots. With the WB not changing as shot the pics should become somewhat relative to each other.

Also to get me in the ball park at the beginning of the dive will take a shot of a grey card so I have a test point to start my adjustments from.

Cheers

BC

I do all my adjustment of the RAW file by eye so that I get a pleasing-looking result.

I could not agree more.

Ellen

I'm not sure if this white-balancing business isn't over-rated. Why take an 18 percent gray card down with you (or a pair of white fins for that matter)? It's not a product shot that anyone is going to compare the original subject with.

I do all my adjustment of the RAW file by eye so that I get a pleasing-looking result. To those that argue that my pictures don't look real I say, I take white light down with me in the form of strobes so what is reality anyway? If it looks right to me, it is right. It's been working for artists since before the days of Leonardo da Vinci so why not now? Adjust your RAW files so they look good - that's all!

John, I agree with you saying it's whatever looks good to you, I'm just saying it's *easier* to get the colors looking the way you want if you have a neutral gray or white reference object to point that little eye-dropper thingie at. Maybe you are better than I am in Lightroom, I'll use all the help from the built-in whizbang stuff I can get

If you're really serious about WB underwater, then you need to be doing continual adjustment every time there is a change in ambient light conditions. This means change in depth, direction of sunlight, clouds/ no clouds, change in visibility, etc. This can turn into a lot of work unless you're diving in a non-changing environment (not too likely). It's much easier to set WB to Auto & fine turn in Photoshop or whatever you're using for post. I'd much rather spend the majority of my time finding & shooting subjects than adjusting WB every few minutes.

If you're really serious about WB underwater, then you need to be doing continual adjustment every time there is a change in ambient light conditions. This means change in depth, direction of sunlight, clouds/ no clouds, change in visibility, etc. This can turn into a lot of work unless you're diving in a non-changing environment (not too likely). It's much easier to set WB to Auto & fine turn in Photoshop or whatever you're using for post. I'd much rather spend the majority of my time finding & shooting subjects than adjusting WB every few minutes.

There seems to be some confusion here between the need to white-balance with RAW files and with in-camera processing of jpegs.

Changing white balance will have a (small) effect on exposure. However, how on earth do you define with absolute precision what it is that you want to be white to ensure an equally precise exposure? For the shifts involved its far more efficient use of time to use auto white balance and adjust during raw conversion later.

Question for clarification: If I'm shooting in RAW, do white balancing under water make a difference? I mean, if you can color correct in post production, is there an advantage? My guess is yes, that post production produces more noise...

I agree with john .. you only need to make things look right that people know.. the no1 thing people know is skin tone that's something that you cant change (this is the rule i use above water).. underwater maybe people expect skin colour to look a little different and they generally have no idea about everything else underwater so you can make it look what ever you thing looks "good" and it wont distract the viewer.

Having said that manual set of WB can help give you at least a starting point so you are only tweaking the WB small amounts on the PC and not starting from scratch for me that's the only advantage. But it will give you heaps more to do depending on your dive profile.. you will need to set the white balance at least every 1m of depth change.

I agree with john .. you only need to make things look right that people know.. the no1 thing people know is skin tone that's something that you cant change (this is the rule i use above water).. underwater maybe people expect skin colour to look a little different and they generally have no idea about everything else underwater so you can make it look what ever you thing looks "good" and it wont distract the viewer.

Having said that manual set of WB can help give you at least a starting point so you are only tweaking the WB small amounts on the PC and not starting from scratch for me that's the only advantage. But it will give you heaps more to do depending on your dive profile.. you will need to set the white balance at least every 1m of depth change.

Which is better? WB done in the RAW converter. Printed size A1 for the walls of London International Dive Show. One of 25 pictures. I guess Alex saw them round the VIP lounge. Ask him if they were noisy.

Does anyone use WhiBal cards underwater to assist in color correction in Photoshop?

All setting the white balance will do for RAW is set the "as Shot" setting.

It is true that the dropper doesn't always work but a little practice with the slider will get it looking "right" as John says. "Right", of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

Shooting Raw, one needs to care about exposure. I tend to care more what the histogram says than the preview.