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SHOOTING RAW: THE IMPORTANTANCE OF WHITE BALANCE (POST PROCESSING FTW)
Posted on 03/09/10 at 12:26AM
[ mandlar ]
The number one reason you should shoot RAW is that it allows you to adjust your white balance during post processing. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:
The shot’s original white balance is on the right, and the adjusted white balance is on the left. No more ugly amber light from the street lights of downtown Winston-Salem!
One of the first things I bought for my Nikon D5000 was a WhiBal white balance card (a gray card), a must-have if you’re going to be shooting RAW and want to make these post processing adjustments easily. It’s usually as simple as click an eye drop tool and clicking on the card (in Lightroom or Aperture). There really is no good reason to not shoot in RAW. You’re given up few megabytes per picture to retain all of the shot’s information, which gives you better options and freedom to work with the picture after it was taken. Sure, you have to spend a little extra time with your pictures to make them better, but you might be able to make decent shots into great shots! Just remember: once you take that photo in JPEG, that’s it- it’s done and baked in (and compressed!).
If you do have a white balance card, remember to use it! And don’t forget to take another picture of the card (at the subject, unless lighting is constant) whenever the lighting/exposure changes.
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 12:26 amand is filed under camera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
