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LR3 beta 2 and colour balance

PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 09:17 Link
I shoot mostly landscapes, using a K200D. I like my finished image colours to be whatever the light was at the time. So if I'm in a cold blue shadow area, things would have a cold blue tint. If a warm sunset light, things would look warm. Etc.
I shoot raw and set my camera colour temp to "daylight". Colour space aRGB if it matters.
When I get my shots into LR3 Beta 2, the develop module SAYS it's using "as shot" preset for the colour temp - which is what I would expect. But it isn't. The colour temp and tint sliders both move around between 4500 and 5200 K and +/- 10 green magenta. So it looks like lightroom is applying auto adjustments to the image. Which is frustrating!
If I change to "daylight" preset in lightroom the images look too warm and too magenta.
And yes, I do have a colour calibrated monitor.
Comments? Advice?

Thanks guys.

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 09:20 Link
Oh yes - and I'm shooting DNG not PEF in case that matters also!
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
terje-l
Posted 03/05/2010 - 10:59 Link
I thought that setting colour temp when shooting RAW didn't matter, and that the resulting colour balance were set when "deveoping" the RAW image.

At least in PSE, the Adobe Camera RAW allows you to select any of the standard balance options, as well as fine tuning using sliders.
Best regards
Terry

K20D, Optio I10, DA 18-55 1:3.5-5.6 AL II, A 1:1.7/50, D FA 1:2.8/100 Macro, Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 APO DG Macro, Pentax AF 360FGZ
PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 11:33 Link
Just been on the Lightroom forums and this has been discussed extensively, though I can't find an answer to my specific question. So I've posted there also.

It seems that LR is trying to balance my pictures to achieve neutral tones (despite it claiming that WB is "as shot"). Since I don't want my pictures balanced to achieve neutral tones, but want any overall colour casts in the image preserved, I'm finding this a tad frustrating.

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
amoringello
Posted 03/05/2010 - 11:35 - Helpful Comment Link
Lightroom will adjust the color to match the "As Shot" setting, Daylight in your case and move the sliders accordingly. If you manually set to the same value of Daylight, you really should not see much if any difference in the displayed image. So it sounds like something is awry, but cannot think of anything conclusive for what could be wrong at the moment.

I guess one suggestion would be to use PhotoME to look at the full EXIF data and see if perhaps the white balance setting is not actually correct.


Oddly, I was just out this weekend with my K7, and among other problems, one out of about four images did not keep the correct color balance. Set to Daylight, but came back cold blue. If I set manually to Daylight in Lightroom everything looked fine. I have a iMac, so I'll have to dig up a Windows machine or VM to run PhotoME and see what was going on with those pics.
Anvh
Posted 03/05/2010 - 14:33 Link
I think the Daylight settings and the other white balance settings aren't fixed settings but have some room to move within a set limit.

As for white-balance and colour-space, it does not effect the RAW data at all.
Stefan
Comment Image

K10D, K5
DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135, D-FA 100 Macro, DA 40 Ltd, DA 18-55
AF-540FGZ
PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 17:09 Link
Just downloaded "photoME" - what an interesting program - and checked 3 sample images. They all say the same thing for WB. In the "overview" data block, WB is "user selected", in the "Camera" data block WB is "manual" and in the "Manufacturer Notes" data block, WB is "daylight" and WB mode is "user selected".

For the 3 images I checked, for colour temp and green / magenta tint, LR3 set 4950 / -11, 5350 / -10 amd 4650 / -9. As the old muppets joke goes "there's nothing like consistency - and that's nothing like consistency!"

I posted on the Adobe forums and Eric Chan from Adobe asked me to send him some sample images. Either LR is not reading K200D exif data correctly, or I'm doing something dumb..

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
Anvh
Posted 03/05/2010 - 17:16 - Helpful Comment Link
Paul you skipped my comment

The white balance setting "daylight" is not a fixed value on the Pentax camera's it simply limits the range of the white balance to daylight values.
The same is true for other settings, if you truly want to have a fixed value you need to input them manually.

so it's not you who are doing something dumb nor is it lightrooms fault, it's simply the camera doing it

The reasons why not to use a fixed value is because a colour temperature is not a fixed value, the daylight colour differs depending what time it is, seasons, how close to the equator you're ect.
The same is true for tungsten light, one lamp can give a slightly different colour then another lamp, that's why there is room for the camera to change white balance even if you chose a pre-set.
Stefan
Comment Image

K10D, K5
DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135, D-FA 100 Macro, DA 40 Ltd, DA 18-55
AF-540FGZ
Edited by Anvh: 03/05/2010 - 17:33
PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 17:37 Link
Hi Stefan
Sorry I didn't understand your comment when you first made it. Your second post made it clearer. I think I need to do some more detailed reading on this. I've had a quick look at the EXIF data for the 3 test images again and they all have a different set of values for a parameter called "as shot neutral" - I wonder if this is what LR is reading?

Thanks very much

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
Malo1961
Posted 03/05/2010 - 18:38 Link
Personally I would change the in camera colour space to Adobe RGB instead of sRGB. Simply because of Lightroom's default setting which is ProPhotoRGB.(which is even wider compared to RGB)

If you shoot raw you want to retain as much as detail as possible for obvious reasons. Shooting raw in sRGB is limiting yourself to much.

Colour balance setting while shooting raw doesn't matter. In LR you can change it anyway. Just keep it on Auto White Balance.

edit: after re-reading I saw you already have your camera on Adobe RGB.

Advice on WB setting stays, though.
Best regards,

Martin.


Curious about my photography?? Just Follow the Light.
Edited by Malo1961: 03/05/2010 - 18:42
Anvh
Posted 03/05/2010 - 18:45 - Helpful Comment Link
Don't worry, not a native speaker so I might say some things in a strange way

Someone else posted about a difference in white balance 2 or 3 weeks ago and that's where it came clear the pre-sets weren't fixed values but more auto-white balance recommendations so to speak.

With RAW the camera adds some extra information and one is a suggested or set white-balance setting and the "as shot" setting in lightroom use those settings.

If you want consistent white balance you need to use manual setting, something between the 5200 to 5500 kelvin is mostly fine for daylight but it may vary from 5000 to 6000 kelvin actual daylight light.
You can also upload RAW files with a pre-set in Lightroom, you can say it should set the white-balance to daylight for the photos you upload and things like that.
Stefan
Comment Image

K10D, K5
DA* 16-50, DA* 50-135, D-FA 100 Macro, DA 40 Ltd, DA 18-55
AF-540FGZ
PaulEvans
Posted 03/05/2010 - 19:28 Link
Thanks for all the input guys. I am reading up on fine tuning white balance on the K200D. I am also waiting a response from Adobe and will let you know what they say.

Thanks again

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro
PaulEvans
Posted 04/05/2010 - 22:38 Link
And to close this one down, here is the reply from Eric Chan at Adobe -

Hi Paul, thanks for providing the sample files. These were helpful.

I found something a little unusual, which I can't quite explain. Despite the fact that you've specified a manual, fixed WB setting on your camera, the DNG files are recording a variable white balance. That is, at the technical level, the AsShotNeutral tag in the DNG contains different values for each of the three images you provided. This in turn explains why there are three different temp/tint values for "As Shot" when you open the files in Lightroom. As noted earlier, LR simply reads the "white balance" from the DNG, so it effectively reports whatever the camera put there.

I don't know how this discrepancy / inconsistency can be addressed at capture time (i.e., via your camera settings) for your camera.

But it can be addressed pretty easily on the Lightroom side. Since you're interested in a fixed white balance, the easiest thing to do is define either an import preset or a per-camera default with your preferred white balance setting (e.g., Temperature = 5000 K, Tint = 0). That way, when you import all of your images in the future, they'll all automatically get this fixed WB setting.

So there you go guys. Stefan was right. I think I may now email Pentax to ask for their views.

Paul
K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro

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