15. ADJUSTING WHITE BALANCE

WHEN YOU SHOOT RAW images, the camera collects all of the information about the picture and lets you make changes to the picture later on in post-processing. One of the first things you’ll do is adjust the white balance. White balance is the combination of temperature and tint in a picture.

Temperature can be measured in a range from low (cooler, or blue) to high (more of a yellowish tone). The tint allows you to change the color of the picture, from green to a magenta color. Your DSLR has a set of white balance options that automatically set the temperature intent for the scene you are shooting. While it is always advantageous for you to make this white balance decision in-camera, shooting in a RAW format allows you to make changes to the white balance at a later date in Lightroom.

Select one of the images you want to work with and head to the Develop module by clicking on the Develop tab at the top of the panel, or by pressing the keyboard shortcut D. You’ll see the white balance (WB) in the Basic panel at the top right of the module. You can click on the WB drop-down menu to select from a series of white balance presets that will change the temperature and tint of the image automatically for you (Figure 15.1).

If you selected an incorrect white balance in-camera, simply select the preset for the white balance that you intended to use, and the image will be automatically adjusted. You can also select Auto, and Lightroom will take care of the temperature and tint for you.

It’s important to note that you don’t have to use the white balance preset options in the drop-down list. More often than not, your selection of temperature and tint is the first place where you can exercise some creative control in making a picture. For example, in many of my blue-hour cityscape shots, I tend to ride the temperature slider a little cooler (to the left) and add a little bit more magenta to create a surreal look (Figure 15.2). Automatic settings are great, but it’s your individual touch that’s going to make your picture stand out.

Figure 15.1 Try as it might, sometimes the DSLR does not make the best white balance choices.

Figure 15.2 A picture of the Burj Khalifa at sunset. The only settings I changed for this shot were the Temperature and Tint.

To the left of the WB drop-down menu, you’ll see an eyedropper. This eyedropper allows you to select an area of the picture to use as the basis for a white balance adjustment. If you’re not sure of the correct white balance for your picture, scan the image and see if you can find an area of gray. Clicking on the gray portion of the image with the eyedropper will yield a great white balance result.

Oftentimes if I want to make sure I have the right white balance for a picture, I will photograph a gray card at the start of my shoot to make sure I have an image with a neutral gray color (Figure 15.3). Then I can use the eyedropper in Lightroom to click right on the target and I’m good to go.

There will be plenty of times when you’re not carrying around a gray card. In these instances, you’ll be left scrounging around the image looking for a gray portion you can use. If you can’t find one, try using the eyedropper to select an area that you believe may have a neutral tone (Figure 15.4). This will at least get the Temperature and Tint settings in the right ballpark, and you can finish the adjustments yourself.

Using Lightroom’s Camera Profiles

The Develop module in Lightroom allows you to work in a “top-down” format that usually makes sense. However, there is one area that I like to check before I make any initial adjustments to the picture—the Camera Calibration panel.

Have you ever taken a shot with your DSLR, looked at the picture on the camera screen, and thought it looked great? Have you then looked at it later on your computer, only to see that the great picture that was in your camera has all but disappeared, leaving you with a picture that looks extremely plain?

When you make a picture in a JPG format, your camera applies color, contrast, and sharpening adjustments to the image based on the settings you choose. When you shoot in a RAW format, the camera presumes that you’ll make these changes later on in post-processing. However, if you look at pictures on the back of your camera when you take them, you’re staring at an image that will look quite different from the RAW file you’ll work on later.

The reason you see this discrepancy has to do with the fact that the camera exposes a picture using its built-in JPG settings, and shows you that JPG on its screen. This JPG is also embedded in the RAW file as a thumbnail for import into Lightroom. When Lightroom imports the image and starts building its own previews, it takes the JPG the camera created and replaces it with a JPG that it creates, often with very “blah” results.

The good news is that you don’t have to accept these results, and this is where the Camera Calibration panel can be quite useful. In this panel there are two drop-down menus: Process and Profile (Figure 15.5). If you click on the Profile drop-down, you’ll see a series of camera profiles that are similar to the ones you would have selected in your DSLR. Cycle through the previews to find a color and contrast treatment that brings the thumbnail closer to what you saw on the back of your camera, and you’re done!

Figure 15.3 Sometimes a simple collapsible gray card can take care of a lot of the white balance problems you have on a shoot.

Figure 15.4 I believe the back wall in this picture was whitish. Clicking on it with the eyedropper got me pretty close to the white balance I was looking for.

Figure 15.5 The Camera Profile settings are specific to the camera you used. If the image was shot with a Canon, you will only see Canon Profiles; if it was shot with a Nikon, you will only see Nikon Profiles; and so on.