I’ve never heard of this technique before. Thanks for sharing! I’ve never had a rule for it, just adjusted the slider to what I thought looked right, which is probably very inconsistent.
This is the first time I've seen this technique. Interesting. My question is, what if you don't have something white in the image? Not all of us are shooting subjects wearing wedding dresses.
I didn’t believe it at first. Was watching this about 1:30 in the morning and to give it a go. WOW. Totally different. Hit reset and tried the white balance dropper. Not even close. I’m an analytical type so this is amazing. Thanks.
Like others here this particular technique of getting the R, G, and B channels within 1% of each other is not something I've heard of before. I must say it is very timely for me as I had just finished an event shoot and had just under 200 images to edit. Going back over them and applying this 1% approach to the WB is actually very revealing and resulted in me making several changes that I think improved the images quite a bit. Great tip - thanks!
Very helpful video but please ditch the annoying and intrusive background musak. It’s the same few notes over and over and over again. You don’t need anything more than your visuals and voice.
Yes ! It is One of the several most annoying copy-cat editing trends that every every every TH-camr is doing - same same same … no thinking, just copying the same editing style we have seen and heard a hundred times over on every other video channel - interestingly, when TH-camrs actually put out polls to their viewers it more often than not turns out he large majority of viewers reply with voting against background music ! Most people do find it annoying, distracting, repetitive, boring, tiring, … …
Interesting. You manually balanced in a shad ow area at the 8 min mark, which is a different colour temperature to the lighting. What would be the difference in using the White Balance Tool compared to your method?
Hey! I personally find this way finds technically perfect wb pretty accurately...with the wb tool that doesn't work too well at least for me and my nikon files. It also changes tint, and if I did this for all my images, tint would be different and less consistent I feel :) All subjective really though!
Thanks. This is great. I checked the WB of your method against the eye dropper tool and the eye dropper is really close, just much quicker getting to within 10%. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding something?
This is the first time I have seen the histogram used to adjust white balance. I also did not realize the RGB values in the histogram would change when the pointer was moved over the image. I noticed you were adjusting the Temp while the pointer was stationary on the image. How do you do this? I like how you made the distinction between technically correct and artistically desirable.
Heya! If you click on the text for white balance, then you can then adjust the white balance using the plus and minus keys on your keyboard :) I always use it for exposure too it’s super
The eye dropper balance the temperature and tint and James want to keep the tint in 0 and only balance the temperature. So in this technique you have more control over the eye dropper. But the concept is the same.
The method worked great with your images! I noticed that all of the images had white which you could use to set the white balance. What do you do when there isn't white in the image? Does this method still work? If so, how?
I guess in that situation I’d see the images taken before or after that particular image and see if there’s white or near white in any of them. I guess working at mainly weddings I’m lucky that there would normally be something white somewhere 🤣
@@TheKingsOutlaw , well it depends on what you are trying to do. The method presented here is helping you get the color temperature "correct" but NOT the full WB as that would require also moving the G. If all you want is correct color temp, then yes, just move the temp to get equal R/B for anything that "should" be gray and ignore the G. If you want to affect the whole WB, then I would just use the eye dropper tool--it attempts to set all R/G/B equal under whatever you click (make sure it's supposed to be gray!)
Great technique, is like using the eye dropper but with absolute control. This it's a complement to other techniques like increase the vibrance at maximum and balance the white by perception. Also you have to be aware that this "perfect WB" can be twisted for creative reason or achive some personal style.
Plus and minus keys. I mention it in the video but it’s not clear I agree I thought it popped up. But yes click white balance and then the plus and minus keys will adjust it :)
Thanks for the feedback richard...I'll probably remove background music entirely moving forward for future videos. Slowly learning youtube do's and don'ts
Lovely James! Never adjusted WB like this before, will try it, I find at times I get snow-blind in a long session of editing with WB, I often need to go back and sanity check after a break away so knowing 'technical' WB would be great! 🤓👍 Ace tip! Panasonic seems to get WB OK, also I shoot hybrid so can't really do the 5200K trick. I do remember a few Nikon users doing that pre-mirrorless with DSLRs too.
Yea Nikon wb sucks to be honest! Well, the way Lightroom reads it anyway. Z8 though I’m having more luck. Oh really, same here…can’t you have a different wb for video?!
@@PearceWeddingPhotography got it thanks. This was very helpful and I’ve already seen an improvement. Now what happens when you have no white. Do you have a method to nail white balance the ?
I find that it isn't what's "right", it's what looks good, so as long as your montor is properly adjusted, just play with the sliders until you like the results. With experience it takes about ten seconds on the average picture.
Heya!! Just set my camera to manual Kelvin 5200 on my camera and it helps me alot :) that way I can batch process things. I’ve discovered especially with Nikon z that wb is insanely bad on auto
From my observation, aligning the RGB peaks doesn’t always work, if one colour is very dominant in one of the either shadows, mid-tones or highlights. I was editing an image taken whilst hiking, and the image had a lot the sky showing. The sky was predominantly blue as it was decently clear day. So blues will dominated the highlights on the histogram - and trying to align the peaks created a massively yellow hue across the image (too warm). So I instead focused on making sure the Red and Green peaks were within 1% of each other, and ignored the blue peak. So how would you better apply this rule/suggestion when trying to get the prefect WB? Seems like in the end, it comes down to using your own visual judgment. One thing that someone told me, is to place your mouse on something that is meant to be white, and then make the histogram adjustments that way. By placing your mouse on that white item, you will then see the histogram values for that area - and then simply try and make sure the values are within 1% of each other.
"technically correct" is very wrong in most of these photos. Almost all your examples had mixed lighting and therefore you could have 2 (or even more) technically correct values for your "correct white". Your white balance dropper would adjust as much based on whatever you decide neutral is. The real magic is understanding that you usually have at least 2 different sources (Blue sky, clouds, sun and reflections off the scenery) and you're trying to make your subject deliver a message or image inside the frame without your viewer being distracted by colour casts on the subject itself. By adjusting the way you are, you're going to be inconsistent shot-to-shot. Being happy with one photo and inconsistent is not "good". Real Technically Correct white balance uses a test card with a ton of swatches and some good software... Colorchecker passport for instance. You take a shot with it in the frame and it will correct more than just the white point. That would be "technically correct". You could also take a diffuser, fill the frame with it and shoot the room (gary fong works well for this) and use that to adjust your WB.
Hey thanks for this! Yea I guess I didn’t make it clear that saying there was 10 photos in a set…then I’d find white balance on one and then copy it over, and adjust if needed but most of the time with these venues being in mostly zero control of the environment it just comes down to whatever looks nice
You should really try a passport - It's the only way I know to really understand how your lenses have colour casts. - Also the reason I can't use a budget kit lens. Yeah - you can take nice shots but you can't keep them consistent. Canon L glass rules!@@PearceWeddingPhotography
you just called her dress white? dude, there is ivory, babypowder, linne, eggshell, pearl, bone, dove, ghost, not just white you noob, lol. anyway you are making thing just neutral , but not necessary correct. maybe use a color checker
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I’ve never heard of this technique before. Thanks for sharing! I’ve never had a rule for it, just adjusted the slider to what I thought looked right, which is probably very inconsistent.
Whatever works best you for bud!
This is the first time I've seen this technique. Interesting. My question is, what if you don't have something white in the image? Not all of us are shooting subjects wearing wedding dresses.
I didn’t believe it at first. Was watching this about 1:30 in the morning and to give it a go.
WOW. Totally different. Hit reset and tried the white balance dropper. Not even close.
I’m an analytical type so this is amazing. Thanks.
BOOOOM LETS GO ❤️
Excellent information. This would have saved me lots of worry.. but good news, it now will save me even more worry. Cheers!
Glad it helped
Like others here this particular technique of getting the R, G, and B channels within 1% of each other is not something I've heard of before. I must say it is very timely for me as I had just finished an event shoot and had just under 200 images to edit. Going back over them and applying this 1% approach to the WB is actually very revealing and resulted in me making several changes that I think improved the images quite a bit. Great tip - thanks!
The eye dropper does the same thing.
No, it does not. I believed this and felt confident in it but his method is FAR superior!
Yes, I tried the eye dropper and it does the same thing as long as you click on any color close to white.
Eye Dropper doesn't do the same thing. It gets the same result... faster
the only difference is that the eye dropper also move the tint.
@@edwardseiler1909 :)))))))
May be it would be easier to have some sort of accessory with the white/gray thing that later can be used for setting white balance?
Possible yes but not for me when I only photograph weddings and I’m constantly walking around
James,
An interesting technique, but why not just use the eyedropper tool?
Thank you for a very interesting and useful video.
No worries Ian!
I’d never heard of this technique before - thanks for sharing!
Thanks David!
This is great, had not realised you could do this and your explanation is easy to follow and it works well. Thanks
Thanks Stuart! I’m not the best at making these videos but hoping the more I make the better ill get at making them
I love this, never knew of this method, its a game changer for me.
Very glad!
Incredible advice! I could not wait to get home and try on some of my photographs and WHAT a difference your tip made in those pictures!
Ah Edward I like you
Very helpful video but please ditch the annoying and intrusive background musak. It’s the same few notes over and over and over again. You don’t need anything more than your visuals and voice.
Noted, thank you!
@@PearceWeddingPhotographythe music is lovely stick to you bro.
Yes ! It is One of the several most annoying copy-cat editing trends that every every every TH-camr is doing - same same same … no thinking, just copying the same editing style we have seen and heard a hundred times over on every other video channel - interestingly, when TH-camrs actually put out polls to their viewers it more often than not turns out he large majority of viewers reply with voting against background music ! Most people do find it annoying, distracting, repetitive, boring, tiring, … …
Interesting. You manually balanced in a shad ow area at the 8 min mark, which is a different colour temperature to the lighting.
What would be the difference in using the White Balance Tool compared to your method?
Hey! I personally find this way finds technically perfect wb pretty accurately...with the wb tool that doesn't work too well at least for me and my nikon files. It also changes tint, and if I did this for all my images, tint would be different and less consistent I feel :) All subjective really though!
This is the first time I’ve ever heard this method 😮
really helpful trick, thanks for sharing.
No worries rob
Thanks. This is great. I checked the WB of your method against the eye dropper tool and the eye dropper is really close, just much quicker getting to within 10%. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding something?
What’s better? Quicker, or more accurate? Tbh it’s whatever works for you, I find this works for me best :)
Plus the tint goes crazy for my Nikon cameras personally if I use the dropper
This is the first time I have seen the histogram used to adjust white balance. I also did not realize the RGB values in the histogram would change when the pointer was moved over the image. I noticed you were adjusting the Temp while the pointer was stationary on the image. How do you do this? I like how you made the distinction between technically correct and artistically desirable.
Heya! If you click on the text for white balance, then you can then adjust the white balance using the plus and minus keys on your keyboard :) I always use it for exposure too it’s super
This is one way to color correct an image. However, wouldn’t using the eyedropper in the white balance tool to click on a neutral be much quicker?
Yes that would be much easier. This chap doesn’t know basic features like eye dropper sampling? Lol.
The eye dropper balance the temperature and tint and James want to keep the tint in 0 and only balance the temperature. So in this technique you have more control over the eye dropper. But the concept is the same.
Super useful. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers for the comment!
The method worked great with your images! I noticed that all of the images had white which you could use to set the white balance. What do you do when there isn't white in the image? Does this method still work? If so, how?
I guess in that situation I’d see the images taken before or after that particular image and see if there’s white or near white in any of them. I guess working at mainly weddings I’m lucky that there would normally be something white somewhere 🤣
@@PearceWeddingPhotography Fair enough! Weddings intimidate me, but there's gotta be white somewhere, right? 😁
You don't need white specifically, just anything that's a shade of gray. White, black, gray--they're all just equal parts R, G, B.
@@Mariner1460 Thanks! Do I still adjust to even parts of red and blue?
@@TheKingsOutlaw , well it depends on what you are trying to do. The method presented here is helping you get the color temperature "correct" but NOT the full WB as that would require also moving the G. If all you want is correct color temp, then yes, just move the temp to get equal R/B for anything that "should" be gray and ignore the G. If you want to affect the whole WB, then I would just use the eye dropper tool--it attempts to set all R/G/B equal under whatever you click (make sure it's supposed to be gray!)
Great technique, is like using the eye dropper but with absolute control. This it's a complement to other techniques like increase the vibrance at maximum and balance the white by perception. Also you have to be aware that this "perfect WB" can be twisted for creative reason or achive some personal style.
Thanks for sharing. I've never heard of this method. While there are numerous ways to get to a preferred WB, this is just another tool in the kit
Thanks for the great advice, every day’s a school day!
Any time!
Beautiful!!!
Wonderful Idea 💡 ❤
are you clicking some key to reduce temp or not? if yes, tell us the key you used
Plus and minus keys. I mention it in the video but it’s not clear I agree I thought it popped up. But yes click white balance and then the plus and minus keys will adjust it :)
@@PearceWeddingPhotography thank you too much!
Really useful information, well explained, thanks for sharing. I did find the background music really offputting and unnecessary.
Thanks for the feedback richard...I'll probably remove background music entirely moving forward for future videos. Slowly learning youtube do's and don'ts
Thanks, I will definitely watch more in that case.
Lovely James! Never adjusted WB like this before, will try it, I find at times I get snow-blind in a long session of editing with WB, I often need to go back and sanity check after a break away so knowing 'technical' WB would be great! 🤓👍 Ace tip!
Panasonic seems to get WB OK, also I shoot hybrid so can't really do the 5200K trick. I do remember a few Nikon users doing that pre-mirrorless with DSLRs too.
Yea Nikon wb sucks to be honest! Well, the way Lightroom reads it anyway. Z8 though I’m having more luck. Oh really, same here…can’t you have a different wb for video?!
Wow , thank you
What keyboard shortcut are you using to adjust it while still showing percentages?
Hey! Click on tint and then move the cursor over the area you wish to use. And then use the + and - keys :)
@@PearceWeddingPhotography got it thanks. This was very helpful and I’ve already seen an improvement. Now what happens when you have no white. Do you have a method to nail white balance the ?
I find that it isn't what's "right", it's what looks good, so as long as your montor is properly adjusted, just play with the sliders until you like the results. With experience it takes about ten seconds on the average picture.
Wish I would had found this video muchhhhhh sooner 😅
Awesome
Can you explain the 5200k WB process... pros/cons please thank you ps fantastic video WB tip, just tried it out - perfect.
Heya!! Just set my camera to manual Kelvin 5200 on my camera and it helps me alot :) that way I can batch process things. I’ve discovered especially with Nikon z that wb is insanely bad on auto
Isn't this exactly what the dropper thing in the white balance tool does?
Almost, the eye dropper balance the temperature and tint. James want to keep the tint in 0 and only balance the temperature
Do you shoot in raw or jpeg ?
can i have the images for practice?
Great Video
Really usefull
I just watched your video on white balance I have Lightroom mobile free version my histogram doesn’t show the red blue green numbers do you know why?
From my observation, aligning the RGB peaks doesn’t always work, if one colour is very dominant in one of the either shadows, mid-tones or highlights. I was editing an image taken whilst hiking, and the image had a lot the sky showing. The sky was predominantly blue as it was decently clear day. So blues will dominated the highlights on the histogram - and trying to align the peaks created a massively yellow hue across the image (too warm). So I instead focused on making sure the Red and Green peaks were within 1% of each other, and ignored the blue peak.
So how would you better apply this rule/suggestion when trying to get the prefect WB? Seems like in the end, it comes down to using your own visual judgment.
One thing that someone told me, is to place your mouse on something that is meant to be white, and then make the histogram adjustments that way. By placing your mouse on that white item, you will then see the histogram values for that area - and then simply try and make sure the values are within 1% of each other.
Exactly, that's why the balance you do it over a tiny part of the photograph where the color is white or neutral as someone told you.
Wasn't that what he did 😅
He placed his cursor over what he deems to be white
"technically correct" is very wrong in most of these photos. Almost all your examples had mixed lighting and therefore you could have 2 (or even more) technically correct values for your "correct white".
Your white balance dropper would adjust as much based on whatever you decide neutral is.
The real magic is understanding that you usually have at least 2 different sources (Blue sky, clouds, sun and reflections off the scenery) and you're trying to make your subject deliver a message or image inside the frame without your viewer being distracted by colour casts on the subject itself.
By adjusting the way you are, you're going to be inconsistent shot-to-shot. Being happy with one photo and inconsistent is not "good".
Real Technically Correct white balance uses a test card with a ton of swatches and some good software... Colorchecker passport for instance.
You take a shot with it in the frame and it will correct more than just the white point. That would be "technically correct".
You could also take a diffuser, fill the frame with it and shoot the room (gary fong works well for this) and use that to adjust your WB.
Hey thanks for this! Yea I guess I didn’t make it clear that saying there was 10 photos in a set…then I’d find white balance on one and then copy it over, and adjust if needed but most of the time with these venues being in mostly zero control of the environment it just comes down to whatever looks nice
Saying that also I’ve just finally got a wb card to take with me 😂
You should really try a passport - It's the only way I know to really understand how your lenses have colour casts. - Also the reason I can't use a budget kit lens.
Yeah - you can take nice shots but you can't keep them consistent. Canon L glass rules!@@PearceWeddingPhotography
nikon...hence the white balance issue!@@christopherberry8519
do you listen to the music that you inflict on the view of your videos while you put it together?
Or you just click with WB point on a neutral target :))))))))))))))
Yeaaaa but as you can see many comments saying this way is better so it’s personal preference:)
@@PearceWeddingPhotography of course.
you just called her dress white? dude, there is ivory, babypowder, linne, eggshell, pearl, bone, dove, ghost, not just white you noob, lol. anyway you are making thing just neutral , but not necessary correct. maybe use a color checker
If you wanna use a colour checker in every scene you go for it buddy
@@PearceWeddingPhotography y every scene? does the light changes so often?
no