Something I do not understand about white balance in LR

[Robert Boire]

Hi,

Something in LR3 to be precise, though probably its the same for LR4. Or maybe its white balance itself I do not understand.

I have several photos that were taken inside, very low light conditions without flash. At photos were taken with the camera set to automatic white balance.

In LR3 Develop, all photos are initially shown as "as shot", which is what I expect.  However if I change the WB to anything else, none of the settings resemble the as shot. Auto and Tungsten resemble each other closely -which I would expect under the circumstance - but neither resemble "as shot". I would have thought the "Automatic" and "as shot" would be the same under the circumstances. Does LR3 make some kind of judgement of what it thinks the WB should be based on the picture data? Does it override the in-camera WB?

All photos are in RAW and no other adjustments made.

Thanks

[walter.sk]

I believe that the settings in LR refer to internal LR presets, except for the Auto and As Shot choices.  The As Shot takes the specific data from your camera settings whether they were determined by AWB or one of the camera presets, while the Auto is LR's guess based on the colors in your image, probably best when you have what was a neutral gray or white in the image.

[Robert Boire]

The As Shot takes the specific data from your camera settings whether they were determined by AWB or one of the camera presets, while the Auto is LR's guess based on the colors in your image, probably best when you have what was a neutral gray or white in the image.

So, in effect, if my Camera was set to Auto the as shot reflect the camera auto setting, but the LR auto setting is something completely different?

I guess that makes sense.

[digitaldog]

I believe that LR tries to decipher the custom WB camera setting and apply it’s best guess at the WB, and if close to the presets (in this case Tungsten), the two appear similar.

[Rand47]

So, in effect, if my Camera was set to Auto the as shot reflect the camera auto setting, but the LR auto setting is something completely different?

I guess that makes sense.

Yup, your camera's auto is its best guess, and LR's auto is its best guess.  They won't be the same.  I've quit using auto in my shooting.  99.9% of the time camera is set to daylight.  That way (especially when shooting landscapes) all my images are starting from the same "start point" and are more easily synched once an optimum WB is found for one frame.  (Not always 100% true, but a lot more consisitent than camera's auto WB.)