white balance and shooting RAW. SP-350

[Jeff Toorish]

Personally, I think of WB as a relative setting, since the RAW imager has the slide bar or some other temperature control setting... I would go with my original guess that the WB setting on the camera saves a file with setting info, and that if you use the cameras software, it reads the saved info, and uses those adjustments as a "baseline"

That may be true, certainly seems to make sense.

There are decisions made at every step of the photograph process, including decisions made in the camera. Even with film, a truly "raw" medium, there were built in casts.

But I think the OP was asking if RAW was affected by white balance and, at least in every camera I have used, it is.

I Just looked in the file and at Photoshop, I don't see any additional information written. I also switched from the shot settings to Camera RAW in PS and the image is the same.
Jeff

 

[HowardE]

I could be (sounds like I am) wrong about the Canons.

most certainly film is another story entirely, but colors could still be adjusted when printing from a film negative just as they can in Photoshop. It just seems to me that when changing the WB is so simple, why futz around with it while your on a dive. I would rather focus on getting the picture, than worry about "missing the shot" because I was setting the White Balance.

Even if you do use the built in "cast" or WB preset, you can switch that also in software at the touch of a button w/o losing image quality.

But to each his/her own

 

[Warren_L]

I don't know anything about Canon RAW files, but I'm sure there is other information stored in it other than the RAW data. EXIF info, for example will be stored, and there may well be other information regarding the in-camera settings which Canon capture may read and apply by default. It would be interesting to see what happens if you import the different RAW images you have with different white balances into a program like Photoshop CS2 and apply the same colour temp and tint values and see if there are any differences.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

Okay, think if it like this...

If in the RAW setting the camera gave you exactly what you saw, no adulteration of any kind, we really wouldn't need the white balance function on the camera at all.

In the vast majority of cases, we want a photo to look the way we see it when we push the button. But, as we all know, that doesn't happen.

Does anyone know of a camera that can spit out a perfectly balanced image under all or even most circumstances? The reason for the white balance functions on cameras is specifically because the camera can't do that, in RAW or any other mode.

I do love these types of discussions. Any of you going to Photoshop World in Boston in April?

Jeff

 

[Jeff Toorish]

I don't know anything about Canon RAW files, but I'm sure there is other information stored in it other than the RAW data. EXIF info, for example will be stored, and there may well be other information regarding the in-camera settings which Canon capture may read and apply by default. It would be interesting to see what happens if you import the different RAW images you have with different white balances into a program like Photoshop CS2 and apply the same colour temp and tint values and see if there are any differences.

I did that, same result on the import. I can, of course, change the balance using the various settings.

I don't dispute the idea that the camera is adding some information with the various white balance settings, in fact, that is my point. It has to, otherwise the camera would have some (magical ) ability to know what the scene was supposed to look like. If that were the case, why have the white balance settings at all?

Jeff

 

[HowardE]

If in the RAW setting the camera gave you exactly what you saw, no adulteration of any kind, we really wouldn't need the white balance function on the camera at all.

Don't forget... some people DO shoot in JPEG.

I would tend to agree with Warren. I think there must be some way in the software to "clear all conversions" and see the RAW unadulterated image without any "effects" whether those effects are WB presets, or some other "scene" that the camera is capable of doing.

 

[HowardE]

remember - all the WB really is - is a definition of the color temperature within the camera.

If you have a flash preset, it is most likely preset to around 5400K
Tungsten = approx 2850K
Flourescent = 3800K (again approx)

on my D200, I can select any temperature I want, in the manual WB mode as well.

the numbers are relative, and only arbitrary really, since in software you can change it.

If you are setting the WB manually or using a preset, you're just changing the "first image you see" in the software... But since RAW requires some kind of file conversion to JPEG, TIFF, or something else, does it really matter what you set the camera to?


- I hope this makes sense.

 

[Warren_L]

That's the way I see it too. Remember, RAW is not a viewable format, so when you "view" different RAW files with different WB values, it is really rendered images based on certain values, so ultimately, the originating data may in fact be identical.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

The original question was, does white balance affect RAW. I think clearly it does.

The fact is, RAW is not really the completely unaffected image; more accurately, it is a completely uncompressed image at the highest resolution affected by various paramenters inherent to that camera and in some cases selected by the photographer.

That was my point.

In the case of the original post, is it possible that the color balance on the monitor is off? I actually find that to be a bigger problem that white balance in the camera for my students and clients.

Jeff

 

[HowardE]

From http://www.digicamera.com/features/controllingwhitebalancewithrawfiles/

Are you confused about which white balance setting to use for sunsets or for indoor fluorescent and incandescent lighting? Do you find yourself unsatisfied with the color in your digital images when shooting JPEG or TIFF files? If your camera allows you to shoot in the RAW file format, then stop switching your white balance settings from sunny to cloudy to incandescent and take total control over color balance in your digital imaging software. When you shoot using the RAW file format your digital camera ignores the white balance settings and captures the image exactly as the sensor sees it. You are then free to make adjustments to your imageâs white balance in your image editor.