A humble request for non-photographer photographers.

[false_aesthetic]

Buy one of these things and use it:
Attachment 52759

[coolberto hipsterdor]

If you're shooting in RAW with a digital camera, why? Not trying to be argumentative I just don't see how that would help anyone let alone someone unfamiliar with the theory needed to utilize it.

[d.wilson]

okay. now i have a card with three colors and a small ruler on it. i can see that some things are not one of three colors, and that they're anywhere from 0 to 40mm long. anything else?

[coolberto hipsterdor]

okay. now i have a card with three colors and a small ruler on it. i can see that some things are not one of three colors, and that they're anywhere from 0 to 40mm long. anything else?

Exactly

[roseyscot]

i'm a non photographer photographer and your post means nothing to me.

1. what the f is it?
2. where would i go to learn what it is? nothing here: T.F. Tolhurst or here: LBCC - Photo 43
3. where would i buy one if i did want to use it?

searching google for 3 shades of gray with a ruler isn't doing much for me...

now, if you'll excuse me, i need to make some epic instagram shots on my phone.

[sonny]

grey, Grey, gRey, GRey, grEY, grEy, greY...

[sonny]

hint:
Gray card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

somewhere there are thousands of shots of me looking stupid holding a big 18% card

[simple]

Is this "knowledge" you are sharing or a condescending attitude because I like to learn but knowing what that "thing" is would help.

[AngryScientist]

what the f is it?

oh wait, i know:

an ego booster for the OP, thinly veiled as a helpful post.

thanks for that.

[cody.wms]

Is this "knowledge" you are sharing or a condescending attitude because I like to learn but knowing what that "thing" is would help.

knowledge. There are tons of photos out there with incorrect white balance. You can get the right balance by using a white/18% grey card, which is what he's posted.

I keep my camera set on manual and on the Kelvin scale. I can change it close enough there and do any final corrections in post. I'd probably take it more seriously if anyone was paying me for photos.

[false_aesthetic]

Sorry I was trying to add more to my orig post but I got timed out from editing.

d.wilson: Wrong. There are no colors in that card. It's a neutral white, gray and black.

The card is for white balance. White for highlights, gray for midtones and black for shadows. When people take pictures the camera tries to compensate for the color of the light (that's why you have settings like "sun" "clouds" etc) The problem is that those "canned" color profiles SUCK and that lighting (even in the studio) is rarely the same color temp as your "canned" settings. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature)

The reason why you use a card like this or a MacBeth card is that you want to be able to alter the white balance differently (and accurately). Choosing what you THINK should be white, black and gray doesn't work (especially if you're clicking on points that are not inherently neutral). Further, shadows are often non-neutral because the main light continues traveling beyond the image, hits a colored surface and then reflects that color into the shadows.
____

Placing a WB card in your images (indoor/outdoor/tungsten/daylight/sunrise/sunset/candlelight/etc) at the beginning of a shoot allows you to batch-adjust your images.

Shooting RAW doesn't mean jack if you dont know how to adjust stuff.... it just means that you have more options for adjusting (And more options for fucking up the color)

[sonny]

exposure end:



also for using an eyedropper to "set grey point" in color calibration post processing

[false_aesthetic]

The reason why I finally posted this is because on a bike-related site this morning the writer made a comment about the color/luminance of a frame and then said something like, "Here's a picture but it doesn't look like this in real life."

This is what bugs me:

Especially with bikes, people talk about the craft, the hours it takes to develop muscle memory. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. We drool over perfect miters, a nice edge on a lug, the way bar tape is laid down or the way we route cables. Hell, people have even paid attention to the way Justin crimps cable ends.

But no one calls out the photographer when he/she is doing the product a disservice.
____


Specific examples: 98% of the products reviews on PEZ. Color is wrong, over saturated, shadows are too cool and highlights are wonky. Further, the dude has filled in the highlights with recovery and added too much "clarity."

[sonny]

the reason most folks don't have to use these now is because we have fancy in-camera evaluative reflective light meters. these have increasingly "less dumb" software that meters a whole scene and sets the exposure some where in between the shadows and highlights. proper color calibration relies on a known value as well. absolute shadow -> 18% grey <- absolute highlight

an incident meter (off-camera) negates the grey card's use in exposure, but the card helps set up digital colorspace, esp. w/ a pantone grid or something of the sort

[j44ke]

The whole white balance thing isn't worth it to about 99.99% of the people taking photos out there. Just get a Canon point & shoot, set it on max-size JPG auto-everything and be done with it. The photos will look fine and the ones that don't still won't equal the win-loss of shooting film by a factor somewhere close to infinity.

If someone is interested in white balance, it is much better done in person with the card in one hand and the camera in the other and a computer on a table nearby. There is nothing intuitive about it. It is an adjustable setting created by the limitations of a computer imaging sensor, meter, etc. It isn't that hard to get once someone shows you how it works. But once you know how it works, you realize that card is just one more thing to carry.

I like your evangelism though.

[Bobonli]

I think you're asking a lot of pedestrian photographers, aren't you? Ok, so we all carry a small grey card. What's next, a reflector to fill in the shadows, perhaps a C-stand with some flags! <end sarcasm>

The vast majority of people with cameras want to point, shoot, import, export/share and be done with it. I bet 40% of the people who share on Flickr can't even find the Crop command much less the Batch Adjust command. To the extent that things "don't look real" (paraphrasing)...go look at the Gruber images in the other thread. They are heavily stylized. They look alright to me because I get that they are art but, to someone else, they might look fake.

I don't think anyone here represents their work as professional-grade product photography, and I can't image anyone taking the time on a ride to whip out a grey card or Expodisc as their companions roll past.

[Nierman]

Once done with this crusade, good luck getting all monitors calibrated properly. That Pantone COTY Corsa hasn't looked the same twice. But I am enjoying this strange yearn to buy some old stock green Michelin Wildgrippers for my mtb.

[Jonathan]

This card needs a video.

[joosttx]

Placing a WB card in your images (indoor/outdoor/tungsten/daylight/sunrise/sunset/candlelight/etc) at the beginning of a shoot allows you to batch-adjust your images.

Thats gonna be hard to do while riding a bike. Seriously, I appreciate the explaination. All too often theres this "duh, i can't believe no one gets it/knows" attitude that I liken to a 14 year old rolling his eyes at his father here. If you are adroit at something educate us.

[lukasz]

Is there a reliable/correct way to do this with Lightroom or Aperture or whatever? If I process photos I always try to fix white balance (dropper tool, you know...) but the results are based solely on what I remember the scene to look like.