Need help working with white balance! I have RAWs

[@dam]

Hello all. I just got back from a WONDERFUL trip to Cozumel with my new Canon S100 (no strobes). I normally don't work with RAW, but have been disappointed with some of my colors in the past. Well...I'm stumped!

I shot in RAW+JPEG. Every few minutes I'd reset the white balance using a grey card or white card. Occasionally, I'd shoot with the standard underwater white balance for comparisson. Well...I have to say...the standard underwater white balance often seems to produce a more dramatic "pop"- particularly near the surface. My custom white balance shots (95% of what I shot) sometimes have better colors on the reef and fish, but have an overall dingy and dull feel to them- ESPECIALLY when there's a lot of open water in the frame. The water just doesn't look very blue, and I really want those deep blues as well as the other colors. I figured with RAW I'd be able to do this, but I just can't get it to work. I wind up with something that looks either like the default underwater white balance shot, or like the custom white balance jpeg, but I can't seem to combine the best aspects of both into one amazing photo, which was my goal.

Does anyone have any advice on how to make this work? Any kind of standard work flow? Is there any way to automate the process, or will I have to do them individually since depths were changing?

I'm at work right now, but tonight I'll try to find a few pics that show what I mean.

 

[flareside]

What software are you working in?

 

[@dam]

I have photoshop CS3 for mac, but it doesn't recognize the new RAW formats, so i was using Canon Digital Photo Professional that came with the camera to convert the RAWs

 

[Gilligan]

Maybe THIS helps.

THIS WEBSITE has a list of RAW plugins for PS for a Mac

 

[@dam]

How...it didn't work. It said Photoshop does not recognize that type of file. I made sure to get the mac one.

The most recent update for CS3 is from 2008 anyway.

 

[azscubadude]

How...it didn't work. It said Photoshop does not recognize that type of file. I made sure to get the mac one.

The most recent update for CS3 is from 2008 anyway.

I might be wrong but shooting in RAW might override the custom white balance setting, hence the reason your jpg's look better ?

Adobe stops updating its RAW files for older versions of PS

The MAC version is up to CS5 and I think Adobe RAW 6.xx or higher.

Download the free 30 day trial of LightRoom for Mac and try that.

But both CS5 and LightRoom require an Intel processor so if you are running a PPC Mac you are out of luck.

 

[flareside]

The Canon DPP software and Adobe Lightroom 3 are designed more around "tuning" photos rather than just touching them up as is the case with Photoshop and thus are a better choice for editing underwater photos. There is no magic formula for making your images beautiful. White balance is only the beginning. Beyond that there is vibrance, clarity, saturation, etc. etc. etc.

While the software becomes relatively intuitive once you learn how to use it, you still have to learn how first. Spend a couple of hours watching tutorials and messing with your photos as you go. Canon has a pretty good tutorial section for DPP on their website. Canon DLC: Gallery: Digital Photo Professional (v3.8+) Tutorial Videos. Adobe has a similar group of tutorials for Lightroom on their site. Getting Started with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 | Adobe TV. There are also several good third party sites including Learning Center – Lightroom 3 | Learn Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Digital Photography | NAPP. The process is entirely nondestructive so you really have nothing to worry about.

If you are interested in Lightroom, now is the time to get a copy as it is currently marked down to $135 at both Adorama and B&H as the new version is in beta and should be on the shelves shortly. When that happens, it will go back up to $300 or more. Download the trial version from Adobe and play with it a bit.

 

[Interceptor121]

@dam

Camera Raw 6.5 is required for native support of your S100 on CS5

As you have CS3 I suggest you download the DNG converter from Adobe as RAW formats are specific for the camera and export using camera raw 4.6 which is compatible with your version of CS

Otherwise CS3 will return an error for incompatible file

Let me how you got on I use this software and successfully extract RAW from my CHDK modded Powershot A570IS in iPhoto

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/dng/mac/DNGConverter_6_6.dmg