White Balance Setting for Portraits?

[Nicolas]

What kind of white balance setting do you guys normally use when shooting portraits (eg. in studio & outdoor)? What is the best setting to use to get the correct skin tone colour? Please let me know. Thanks!!

[Squid]

Perhaps the following links maybe of help to you

http://photo.net/making-photographs/light
http://photo.net/photo/studio-photography

[dnaxe]

Originally Posted by Nicolas What kind of white balance setting do you guys normally use when shooting portraits (eg. in studio & outdoor)? What is the best setting to use to get the correct skin tone colour? Please let me know. Thanks!!

depends on the lighting?

It's probably best to do manual white balance, with an expodisc or a grey card.

[catchlights]

depends on what lighting you do the shoot...

in studio, the flash is rated at 5600k, but softbox, umbrella may alter the wb a little, and aging flash tube, or old softbox may turn yellowish also affect the white balance.

at outdoor, you may shoot under direct sunlight, cloudy day, under tree shade, building shade, all have different WB, so no one setting can fix all situations..

some people prefer do custom WB before shoot, some prefer shoot RAW and correct it during the post, so one solution fix all.

[fengwei]

Originally Posted by catchlights depends on what lighting you do the shoot... in studio, the flash is rated at 5600k, but softbox, umbrella may alter the wb a little, and aging flash tube, or old softbox may turn yellowish also affect the white balance. at outdoor, you may shoot under direct sunlight, cloudy day, under tree shade, building shade, all have different WB, so no one setting can fix all situations.. some people prefer do custom WB before shoot, some prefer shoot RAW and correct it during the post, so one solution fix all.

Guess the easy and safe one is to shoot in RAW, then adjust in software late on. Actually many portrait works aren't what they look like when the pictures are taken. The photographers might adjust the colors to whatever they think are the best (to their own taste)

That's why I shoot in AWB, and in RAW if the light condition is too tricky. It's digital afterall, easier than shooting films.

Unless you still shoot film, that's another story ...

[catchlights]

why make you say shooting digital is easier than shooting film?

are you referring on shooting negative or transparency film?

[fengwei]

Originally Posted by catchlights why make you say shooting digital is easier than shooting film? are you referring on shooting negative or transparency film?

Well, for a newbie like me, with digital I can see the results right on the spot. If the exposure is off (which happens alot to newbies like me btw), I'd adjust it and shoot again. But with film, I might not even get a single good shot after looking at the developed films. With RAW, I'd have alot to play with afterwards, and some mistakes might be able to be corrected during post processing.

I don't even know what's the difference between a negative and a transparency film (but I'm sure I can find the answer if I google it) I just shoot those color or b&w films sold at 7/11 ...

[dnaxe]

Originally Posted by fengwei Guess the easy and safe one is to shoot in RAW, then adjust in software late on. Actually many portrait works aren't what they look like when the pictures are taken. The photographers might adjust the colors to whatever they think are the best (to their own taste)

On reflection, this is really good advice.

I would still try to get a proper manual WB while shooting the RAW (because there have been some suggestions that WB affects different colour channels differently even in RAW, so in extreme situations you might get a different result if you shot with AWB instead of the proper manual WB) but just adjusting afterwards is probably a good move.

[catchlights]

negative film is those use C41 processing method, and you usually make print from out of it, transparency film is also call slide film, which use E6 processing method.

you can only get negative films from seven eleven.

shooting film is not that difficult, as long you know your basic of correct metering method and understand the exposure, negative film has larger exposure latitude the slide film, so if you overexpose it by two stops, still able to get decent image out of it, for slide film, your exposure has to be right on the dot, just like shoot on jpg. anyway, photographer usually do bracketing exposure on slide film.

in digital era, so many people forget to learn about the fundamental of photography, just rely on photoshop.

[Nicolas]

Hi guys, thanks for the advices & infos. This is one of the pics I taken during my studio photography course:



What is your comment on the skin tone/ colour?

How should i adjust my white balance manually to get the correct tone? I mean is there a recommended setting that i can follow? Or should I simply adjust the saturation and contrast setting?

[fengwei]

Originally Posted by catchlights negative film is those use C41 processing method, and you usually make print from out of it, transparency film is also call slide film, which use E6 processing method. you can only get negative films from seven eleven. shooting film is not that difficult, as long you know your basic of correct metering method and understand the exposure, negative film has larger exposure latitude the slide film, so if you overexpose it by two stops, still able to get decent image out of it, for slide film, your exposure has to be right on the dot, just like shoot on jpg. anyway, photographer usually do bracketing exposure on slide film. in digital era, so many people forget to learn about the fundamental of photography, just rely on photoshop.

Thanks for the follow up I guess it's digital era, we need to learn how to use photoshop to 'develop' our photos instead of sending them to a shop/lab

I did try to shoot some film again after I went for dSLR, but to me, digital is the way to. No more film for me

[fengwei]

Originally Posted by dnaxe On reflection, this is really good advice. I would still try to get a proper manual WB while shooting the RAW (because there have been some suggestions that WB affects different colour channels differently even in RAW, so in extreme situations you might get a different result if you shot with AWB instead of the proper manual WB) but just adjusting afterwards is probably a good move.

I agree it's better to get it right in the first place. But sometimes we don't have enough time to manually adjust WB properly, that's where RAW comes in handy. If you can make sure the WB is spot on, and with proper exposure, a JPG will be fine too

[fengwei]

Originally Posted by Nicolas Hi guys, thanks for the advices & infos. This is one of the pics I taken during my studio photography course: What is your comment on the skin tone/ colour? How should i adjust my white balance manually to get the correct tone? I mean is there a recommended setting that i can follow? Or should I simply adjust the saturation and contrast setting?

Well, I guess not many can tell you if the skin tone/color is correct or now w/o seeing the actual people/scene

Adjusting WB is very different from adjusting saturation and contrast. Although all can be easily adjusted, WB is alot more important for getting the correct color. Simply adjusting saturation and contrast won't help to get correct skin tone

There are two basic ways to adjust WB manually, do it before and during the shooting, or adjust it afterwards in software (better shoot RAW in this case). There are alot talks on this subject, and you can google them very easily I think. Or else some guys like catchlight can point you to a right direction

Good luck.

[creampuff]

Originally Posted by Nicolas Hi guys, thanks for the advices & infos. This is one of the pics I taken during my studio photography course: http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/b.../IMGP1979a.jpg What is your comment on the skin tone/ colour? How should i adjust my white balance manually to get the correct tone? I mean is there a recommended setting that i can follow? Or should I simply adjust the saturation and contrast setting?

Hi Nicolas, thanks for posting your photo. Adjusting white balance simply means to adjust the digital camera's sensitivity to the dominant colour temperature of the scene the image is shot at.

If you're shooting in the studio, your WB setting would depend on whether you're shooting under daylight, electronic flash or tungsten/continuous light illumination. As fengwei and others have mentioned, you could adjust it in camera (before shooting the subject) or during post processing (after shooting). Obviously in a controlled environment of a studio, getting it right before shooting is the best. Why? Whether you're shooting in RAW or jpeg, getting your WB right in-camera saves a lot of time during post processing. Shooting in RAW gives a you the further advantage to fine-tune colour casts to a fine degree.

Ultimately, only you can determine whether the skin tone you get from the camera and post processed matches the actual model (assuming your equipment is calibrated, etc.).

If I can comment on your photo. I believe you're trying to achieve a high key shot. In high key lighting, the vast majority of tones in the image are above middle grey. I'd soften the sidelight on the left to reduce the hotspots and watch the lighting ratios. Some light falloff in the background, but this can be PPed away. I'd get the model to change to a lighter outfit to convey a better feeling of brightness. Good effort, keep at it.

[catchlights]

#1, there will not be any "correct" skin tone, it depend on our preconception on how a person look pleasing in our eyes.
#1, it looks slightly warm here, but correctable, also need to adjust the level a little.
#2, don't use auto WB in studio, your WB may run over all the place for the whole session.
#3, if you shooting white or light background, hair light or kicker light is redundant.
#4, the main light is flat.

[airconvent]

hey guys...in case you are interested, the December 2007 issue of Digital Camera World is giving a free grey card PLUS camera testing exposure card!

[NoMoney]

Originally Posted by airconvent hey guys...in case you are interested, the December 2007 issue of Digital Camera World is giving a free grey card PLUS camera testing exposure card!

Thanks for the info.

May get a copy to try the grey card since did not use before

[istDeS]

Originally Posted by airconvent hey guys...in case you are interested, the December 2007 issue of Digital Camera World is giving a free grey card PLUS camera testing exposure card!

Interesting, thanks for sharing.