White Balance Blues (newbie-ish question)

[crestgel]

dlwalke, I agree with everyone that is shooting RAW and correcting color in Adobe Camera Raw plugin (ACR) be it in CS1 or CS2. Elements 3.0 and higher has the ACR plug-in. The newest version of the plugin is 3.3, if your .CRW file is not opening correctly in ACR or if you do not have 3.3 please update it from here

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html

Why is RAW better? Do a web search and you should get a much longer explaination. Here is my short version. RAW files have all the information captured by your camera with no post processing. The full information is stored on your card with a sidecar file that states the settings of your camera at the point the picture was taken, like white balance, saturation, sharpness and ... . The RAW file can now be opened in a program that understands RAW files and processed to your liking.

I always shot RAW but

Shooting with ambient light:
I do a white balance. I don’t like seeing my pictures in my camera playback looking green or blue.

Shooting with Flash:
I leave my WB set to Auto


Mixing ambient light and flash can be problematic if your end goal is to balance the 2 different lights. Most macro shots that I have seen use flash to cover the scene, one light source to color correct. If you shot something in the foreground with flash and let the background go green or blue. Mixing the light can work well in the case of a turtle in foreground swimming with silhouette of diver behind it, flash the turtle and let the background go blue.

I try to always shoot to the right of the histogram when feasible.

 

[desperate4dives]

how do you know if your digital camera CAN shoot in raw? is there anything that would tell me and how can i learn how to configure shooting in RAW? thanks,
Kurt
P.S ive go a sea&sea dx750g w/ ys-15 strobe

 

[dlwalke]

It would be one of the options assuming you have a menu on your camera that lets you select the size and quality of pics you take. For example, the menu on my Olympus C5060 lets me decide whether I want to shoot in HQ (high quality), SHQ, Tiff, or Raw.

how do you know if your digital camera CAN shoot in raw? is there anything that would tell me and how can i learn how to configure shooting in RAW? thanks,
Kurt
P.S ive go a sea&sea dx750g w/ ys-15 strobe

 

[dlwalke]

dlwalke, I agree with everyone that is shooting RAW and correcting color in Adobe Camera Raw plugin (ACR) be it in CS1 or CS2. Elements 3.0 and higher has the ACR plug-in. The newest version of the plugin is 3.3, if your .CRW file is not opening correctly in ACR or if you do not have 3.3 please update it from here...

Mixing ambient light and flash can be problematic if your end goal is to balance the 2 different lights. Most macro shots that I have seen use flash to cover the scene, one light source to color correct. If you shot something in the foreground with flash and let the background go green or blue. Mixing the light can work well in the case of a turtle in foreground swimming with silhouette of diver behind it, flash the turtle and let the background go blue.

I have Elements 2 which does not support RAW image processing. However, my camera does, so if I wanted to experiment I could adjust the white balance off the LCD monitor before downloading to the computer (to avoid confusion, it will adjust after the picture has been made). In any case, as most all of my UW shots use the flash, I too would typically just use the auto WB. If doing WB from Adobe (or similar software), can you select an area and white balance that seperately from the rest of the image - e.g., foreground and background?

 

[Tortuga Roja]

I have Elements 2 which does not support RAW image processing. However, my camera does, so if I wanted to experiment I could adjust the white balance off the LCD monitor before downloading to the computer (to avoid confusion, it will adjust after the picture has been made). In any case, as most all of my UW shots use the flash, I too would typically just use the auto WB. If doing WB from Adobe (or similar software), can you select an area and white balance that seperately from the rest of the image - e.g., foreground and background?

No and yes. You won't be able to do selective WB with the RAW converter but you can adjust your colors selectively in photoshop itself.

IMHO, you would be doing yourself a big favor by springing for the $70 upgrade to Elements 4. You have already jumped into the digital photography world with a nice camera and housing (and strobe?), why not download the upgrade so you can get the best from your system. At the very least, try the 30 day free trial so you can see what RAW will do for you.

 

[crestgel]

Yea download the 30day trial version and see what your missing.