RAW and white balance

This what I do shot RAW of course I do not bother with jpgs. I use WB AUTO then I use the white balance tool on a neutral gray portion of image. Well this could be a be subjective to your interpretation. It works fine. All the histrograms RGB Should be align on a closer to Gaussian bell curve. Ideal or closer. I am new to serious UW Photography but check my work http://tbarros.zenfolio.com

Good Luck

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.

To me personally the one on the left looks better.

Adobe Camera RAW has progressed steadily. My understanding is that you need the latest version (4.0.2.1), CS5, to get the latest camera RAW

Setting the white balance with only works some of the time. It is often necessary to set exposure, recovery, clarity, vibrance and saturation before setting the final white balance. I usually start with a correct exposure, then use the dropper tool to set a preliminary white balance, then adjust the above settings, changing the exposure, recovery and black sliders as I adjust clarity, vibrance and saturation. I then use the white balance sliders. It sounds like a lot of work but only takes a few miniutes.

Just FYI

If you shoot RAW and use your back screen to visually confirm your photos the image on the back will use the WB setting as it's a representative JPG image and not a RAW image you're looking at.

Generally I check the histogram on the back and not the actual picture. In addition I find that I can take another 3-4 shots in the time i can magnify the back image to check the sharpness of the image so I don't bother magnifying the image either.

Using a 105 I generally hunt at F/11 to f/13 1/125 to 1/250, both strobes level to the camera extended about 8-10" away from the housing. This allows me to take a decent shot of a medium sized fish from 24-36" away. For smaller stuff I try to start shooting at 18" without changing anything preferring to get the subject in multiple positions as opposed to changing settings. As I get to about 12" I will increase the F/stop towards f/22 and try to swim around the subject to get the best viewing angel. If, at 12" the subject is properly magnified ONLY then will I move the focus point from center and ONLY then will I start repositioning strobes to get superior lighting angles. If the subject is over exposed in the histogram I simply spread the strobes farther out. If it is underexposed I move them in.

Only after all this, if the subject is still around, do I stop and carefully setup the shot and possibly get closer to maximum magnification (about 7")

Now my process is based on a DSLR with essentially zero shutter lag. That gives the ability to get the subject in the exact right pose. I can also take many pictures very quickly. When I had a P&S I used a different process

My logic is that I have a repeatable process that I try to use every time clicking off many shots for later analysis and processing. The process has become second nature to me. I think that most novices should think out a process that fits their ability and equipment. RAW allows sufficient manipulation of exposure and color control that one should focus on viewing angel, focus, background, etc as opposed to those things that can be manipulated in RAW.

Tom

My ha'porth: the better it is in the camera, the better it is in Photoshop! Auto WB isn't too bad for strobe photography, but it's really important to do repeated manual WB using coloured filters.

Tim

Mu understanding is that setting the white balance in the camera has NO effect on RAW. Therefore manual white balancing underwater is not advisable. Essentially what the camara did to process the picture is now done in the RAW converter. Having said that doing repeated manual white balancing in the RAW converter as opposed to accepting a single setting will improve the shot. In fact, in some cases, one must make multiple copies of the raw file, adjust each to different settings, then combine them via layers in Photoshop and use masks to uncover the areas specific to a particular desired setting in order to recover a shot.

Regards,