Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: dreed on June 29, 2019, 02:37:57 am
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One of the biggest challenges I have doing sunset photography is white balance. To be able to work consistently, I almost always have my camera set to "daylight" (exception will be indoors) - there's no point in using the camera's histograms to compare exposures if the WB is set to "auto" and thus potentially different for each shot!
One big problem here is "memory". I can't remember exactly what it looked like.
Using LR, the choices are:
* 2000K, Tint -24 (WB from clouds)
* 2850K, Tint 0 (auto)
* 4350K, Tint -47 (WB from yachts)
* 5500K, tint +10 (Daylight)
... all of the other "develop" settings are 0.
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You cant remember how it looked? I think that’s the nub of the problem. The idea that there must be an objective way it looked that you are trying to now remember.
In the past we used mostly daylight film for landscape and in the evening it tended to shoot very warm at sunset and pretty cool around mid day. Was common to use a warming haze cutting filter particularly at mid day and that warmed up the blue a little. Thing is with a fixed WB we were then exposed to the variations af ambient WB shift and that created a lot of atmosphere in images that we now tend to correct out when balancing every image to “correct” WB. You setting daylight for WB is a pretty good way of replicating what we got with film. You don’t have to shoot like that if saving raw files because you can always get back to daylight in LR or ACR or C1 or wherever.
Some photographers, quite a lot on this forum actually, are comfortable with a scientific approach and will try to balance everything to what colour it should be. By that I think they mean what colour it is once the computational imaging system that is your eye and brain is done auto balancing and hdr’ing everything. Then there is the very scientific approach of shooting colour checkers.
Then there is the totally creative approach. How do you want it to look. Different colours and tonal ranges evoke different emotional responses and you se that and other things in the photograph to say something. A scary approach because it relies on intuition, creativity and a belief in what you wish to say.
Photography both scientific and creative. Attracts people that like either approach and even people that like both. Do you want the correct WB or the WB that will most effectively communicates your emotional response to the scene? If you want to do the latter but don’t know what your emotional response was to the scene then you have more important things to do than worry about WB. If the former than you need to spend more time on the Colour management sub forum.
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1- Accuracy : expodisc or neutral grey card. It works well when color temperature is between 5000 and 8000Kelvin. (or specific works where neutral WB is mandatory, ex : reproductions artwork)
2- Pleasing mode : no more accurate, but you put your reference white to your taste : often means yeellow/orange cast for under 4500k. Our brain doesn't discount totally the white point, at this stage of temperature. To my opinon, a neutralized sunset is a non sense.
Every AWB algo are just a statistical reply to the problem (they tend to adjust the white point in the purpose to integrate all rgb values from the sensor inside the locus spectrum.)
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What's the question?
#2 seems fairly realistic
#4 is how you could sell it these days
You hit upon my main gripe with modern raw processors though. Temperature used to be a good indication of film response, but it has no relevance in our processing logic, especially not when you need to add a second parameter "tint" that has no physical equivalent but merely is a mathematician's solution to a flaw in the modelling.
What they should do is add a colorcast slider with a neutral reference color. This is the way we are used to thinking. This what traditional photography did with "colortemperature" in film. You knew its response and how to compensate for it.
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I've got a "grey card" but I'm unconvinced that really helps. Why do I say that?
In a situation like this, I suspect that the right way to use it is to turn away from the scene so that the light coming from the horizon (that will go into the camera) bounces off the card and then into the camera. If I put the grey card between the camera and the horizon, the grey card is not reflecting the "warm" light. Or at least that's how I think. But I've never seen anyone use them like that, so I'm not sure. In a water scene like this, there's scattered light being reflected everywhere off the water - but how much comes from atmospheric scatter? I've never found anyone to properly explain to me how a grey card is expected to work other than "do this". The worst part is the assumption that the light temperature where you are is the same as whatever it is for the object you're photographing. Or am I overthinking this?
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You cant remember how it looked? I think that’s the nub of the problem. The idea that there must be an objective way it looked that you are trying to now remember.
That's because of Chromatic adaptation by the Human Visual System (HVS).
FWIW, the approach I use in such cases is to take a reference shot with a WhiBal reference (making it reflect the sunlight, by turning my back to the sun), and use that as a starting-point for White-balancing when Raw converting. Then adjust the Color-balance to something warmer that I feel is appealing. I use Capture One Pro as Raw converter, and it has excellent tools for that. One can even apply a cooler Color-balance to shadows, and a warmer Color-balance to highlights and/or mid-tones.
Cheers,
Bart
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I've got a "grey card" but I'm unconvinced that really helps. Why do I say that?
In a situation like this, I suspect that the right way to use it is to turn away from the scene so that the light coming from the horizon (that will go into the camera) bounces off the card and then into the camera. If I put the grey card between the camera and the horizon, the grey card is not reflecting the "warm" light. Or at least that's how I think.
And you are correct.
There are other (sometimes subtle) effects, like when under a tree canopy that filters/reflects towards green light, there is also potentially a lot of ambient light coming from reflected light from the soil, not only incident sun/cloud-light. So that's where Creativity comes in.
Cheers,
Bart
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That's because of Chromatic adaptation by the Human Visual System (HVS).
FWIW, the approach I use in such cases is to take a reference shot with a WhiBal reference (making it reflect the sunlight, by turning my back to the sun), and use that as a starting-point for White-balancing when Raw converting. Then adjust the Color-balance to something warmer that I feel is appealing. I use Capture One Pro as Raw converter, and it has excellent tools for that. One can even apply a cooler Color-balance to shadows, and a warmer Color-balance to highlights and/or mid-tones.
Cheers,
Bart
I agree with all that but use a slightly different approach which I don’t think is better or worse and is unimportant to this discussion.
I like the different colour balance idea in different areas Bart and it is this approach that is one of the reasons I prefer C1 to LR for my personal work. I find LR split toning clumsy by comparison.
Out of interest I am also inclined to desaturate in shadows as human vision loses colour discrimination under low light conditions and I think brightly coloured shadows can look garish and unnatural. I try to be subtle with it of course but a uniform saturation across a broad tonal range lacks the subtlety of human vision and takes some of the mystery out of shadow areas.
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The correct WB is whatever feels authentic to your memory of what you saw and felt. The more your chosen WB can evoke what you felt while being there, the better.
Shooting grey cards and other WB tools will eliminate the light's color cast for when you want accurate subject color independent of lighting conditions.
Now consider beautiful light like your example sunset, where you're trying to capture the color of the light, not eliminate it. There's no procedure or tool to automate this. You just need to feel it out and use your artistic judgement.
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The correct WB is whatever feels authentic to your memory of what you saw and felt. The more your chosen WB can evoke what you felt while being there, the better.
Shooting grey cards and other WB tools will eliminate the light's color cast for when you want accurate subject color independent of lighting conditions.
Now consider beautiful light like your example sunset, where you're trying to capture the color of the light, not eliminate it. There's no procedure or tool to automate this. You just need to feel it out and use your artistic judgement.
Exactly!
This has little if anything to really do with color accuracy and everything to do with producing pleasing color. The correct WB is the one the image creator produces while rendering the image as they desire. A HUGE part of the process, science and art of photography as outlined so well in this article by Karl Lang:
http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/pscs3_rendering_image.pdf (http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/pscs3_rendering_image.pdf)
You want to talk accurate color? You need to start handling scene referred color which is often rather ugly:
http://www.color.org/ICC_white_paper_20_Digital_photography_color_management_basics.pdf (http://www.color.org/ICC_white_paper_20_Digital_photography_color_management_basics.pdf)
You want to talk accurate color, you need a way to measure and define color accuracy:
Delta-E and color accuracy
In this 7 minute video I'll cover: What is Delta-E and how we use it to evaluate color differences. Color Accuracy: what it really means, how we measure it using ColorThink Pro and BableColor CT&A. This is an edited subset of a video covering RGB working spaces from raw data (sRGB urban legend Part 1).
Low Rez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy0BD5aRV9s&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy0BD5aRV9s&feature=youtu.be)
High Rez: http://digitaldog.net/files/Delta-E%20and%20Color%20Accuracy%20Video.mp4 (http://digitaldog.net/files/Delta-E%20and%20Color%20Accuracy%20Video.mp4)
You want to talk WB and RGB value neutrality, you can discuss WB cards and software that sets WB. That rendering using such cards may or may not produce the rendering the creator desires. Useful to get to a starting point, maybe (rarely for my renderings) is it a one click and I'm done affair; I season to taste.
You want to talk remembering the colors you 'saw' at the scene and them matching them on a display or print? Good luck with that. It's so utterly subjective. IF you feel you matched the scene on a print or display (without regard to dynamic range, Chromatic adaptation etc), you're done.
Speaking of Chromatic adaptation, our friends at Chromix just published a very good article on the subject:
The Ideal Room with a View (http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/The_Ideal_Room_With_A_View)
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I wonder in how far this is true. If we introduce a slider called "temperature" in a photographer's colortoolbox (i.e. raw processor), is it then supposed to mimic traditional behavior as understood by a traditional photographer? Or is it just some random parameter in the multitude of unexplained parameters also available to adjust the image by fingerspitzen gefuhl?
In the former case, should the slider represent scene lighting? Or sensor response?
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I wonder in how far this is true. If we introduce a slider called "temperature" in a photographer's colortoolbox (i.e. raw processor), is it then supposed to mimic traditional behavior as understood by a traditional photographer? Or is it just some random parameter in the multitude of unexplained parameters also available to adjust the image by fingerspitzen gefuhl?
In the former case, should the slider represent scene lighting? Or sensor response?
Well if the temperature is based on Kelvin, as we see in LR/ACR (at least textually), useful to know that ANY Kelvin value defines a large range of possible colors:
(http://digitaldog.net/files/LinesOfCCT.jpg)
See that line running from e to f (lines of Correlated Color temperature)? ANY color can be considered 5000K.
The question becomes, which color do you visually prefer, not what number its assigned.
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Well if the temperature is based on Kelvin, as we see in LR/ACR (at least textually), useful to know that ANY Kelvin value defines a large range of possible colors:
(http://digitaldog.net/files/LinesOfCCT.jpg)
See that line running from e to f (lines of Correlated Color temperature)? ANY color can be considered 5000K.
The question becomes, which color do you visually prefer, not what number its assigned.
Yes, exactly, which is why they introduced a second parameter "tint", but that unfortunately creates the mix up between references. The temperature slider is meant to reference the capture temperature response. The tint is then used to adjust undesired reproduction. This, according to my not so humble opinion, especially on this subject, is the source of all confusion. The OP is the prime example, and the answers show that people misunderstand the concept. Hence, it turns into a "move it any way you please to get the desired result", which comes dangerously close to "random" as far as I'm concerned.
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Tint represents magenta to green "axis" and varies as well.
The identical Kelvin or Temp or Tint value in one raw processor will very likely create different color appearance than the other. From the same raw data. Why then edit using a number rather than by what you see? And of course the calibration of the display comes into play.
It's subjective. It really has nothing to do with accurate color.
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Tint represents magenta to green "axis" and varies as well.
The identical Kelvin or Temp or Tint value in one raw processor will very likely create different color appearance than the other. From the same raw data. Why then edit using a number rather than by what you see? And of course the calibration of the display comes into play.
It's subjective. It really has nothing to do with accurate color.
Not in its current implementation, no. That's why I am a proponent of a different WB paradigm in raw converters: colorcast and colorcastreduction. That way it becomes far more intuitively clear and procedurally objectified what is being adjusted by the slider(s).
In addition, it can become more accurate by introducing a single colorresponse whitepoint for the state of the sensor in the captured rawdata. Suppose a sensor is calibrated to capture D65 as neutral, then it could simply communicate that wp in the rawdata. The rawconverter can then use that as a reference to introduce the scene colorcast. A slider called colorcast can then simply adjust between completely corrected neutral gray, to completely uncorrected colorcast. If you allow overshoot, you have the creative adjustment we are seeking here: partially remove colorcast, or overshoot to introduce even more colorcast, or go funky and invert the colorcast (negative values). The colorcast itself can be added as the "second parameter" required for full WB control. Adjust the colorcast by clicking a desired gray, for example.
Note that it then becomes a more sensible adjustment: 0% could mean "as captured", 100% could mean "completely neutral", (or vise versa) anything in between is exactly that.
Moreover: it is then also clear that the actual colorresponse of the sensor in relation to the spectral characteristics of the scenelighting, needs to be separated from the WB sliders.
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Not in its current implementation, no what? The OP is using LR.
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A slider called colorcast can then simply adjust between completely corrected neutral gray, to completely uncorrected colorcast.
well, unfortunately there are at least 3 different dyes used in CFA toppings... so one slider can't do it ;D
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Suppose a sensor is calibrated to capture D65 as neutral, then it could simply communicate that wp in the rawdata.
a lot of cameras communicate in raw data WB settings as raw channel "multipliers" (or rather numbers that software can use to calculate multipliers) for a lot of illuminants, for example
A7R2
0x0264 WB RGB Levels : 602 256 394
0x7820 WB RGB Levels Daylight : 2444 1024 1600
0x7821 WB RGB Levels Cloudy : 2644 1024 1468
0x7822 WB RGB Levels Tungsten : 1496 1024 2868
0x7823 WB RGB Levels Flash : 2696 1024 1444
0x7824 WB RGB Levels 4500K : 2200 1024 1800
0x7825 WB RGB Levels Shade : 2916 1024 1320
0x7826 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent : 2228 1024 2256
0x7827 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent P1 : 2368 1024 1680
0x7828 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent P2 : 2660 1024 1552
0x7829 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent M1 : 1764 1024 2760
0x782a WB RGB Levels 8500K : 3072 1024 1252
0x782b WB RGB Levels 6000K : 2620 1024 1480
0x782c WB RGB Levels 3200K : 1676 1024 2492
0x782d WB RGB Levels 2500K : 1300 1024 3456
Fuji X-H1
0xf00c WB GRB Levels Standard : 302 379 845 17 302 644 492 21 ----- #17 = StdA, #21 = D65
0xf00d WB GRB Levels Auto : 302 710 536
and no - no consumer level camera is calibrated (CFA spectral transmission) for D65 or any other illuminant resembling anything naturally occuring as it is UniWB illuminant.
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well, unfortunately there are at least 3 different dyes used in CFA toppings... so one slider can't do it ;D
I said one slider plus a colorcast (= color, stripped of luminance)
That gives you 3 degrees of freedom, except the parameters at least have some procedural significance in the thinking of a photographer or image editor.
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a lot of cameras communicate in raw data WB settings as raw channel "multipliers" (or rather numbers that software can use to calculate multipliers) for a lot of illuminants, for example
Yes, and they are completely irrelevant as far as whitepoint is concerned. The only thing we need to know is the whitepoint of the sensor at the time of capture. Nothing to do with the scene lighting. Merely its electronic state.
and no - no consumer level camera is calibrated (CFA spectral transmission) for D65 or any other illuminant resembling anything naturally occuring as it is UniWB illuminant.
Of course not. They obviously have a CCT only, and D65 was merely taken as example. What can happen (but not likely) is that the sensor is calibrated towards D65. The dyes are chosen and electronics set so the sensor behaves as if it has a CCT of ~6504K or thereabouts.
If we take the multipliers from your A7 as an example, and we deem equal R and B channel as the likely wp, then the CCT of the A7 is somewhere between 3200K and 6000K according to that list.
It is that particular setting that we are interested in. No other information is relevant, as we are going to adjust the parameters (and thus the multipliers) to our personal taste anyway.
Note also that the list provided in the raw data, is very odd from a procedural perspective: the camera obviously doesn't know which lighting it is capturing, and therefore it knows nothing about the temperature, or the required colorresponse. It could be capturing a sunset with low wp temperature, but requiring a daylight colorresponse. Or it could be capturing an incandescent scene with low temperature, requiring an incandescent colorresponse. The camera doesn't know, shouldn't care, and therefore, shouldn't communicate the info.
You could potentially add maybe a spectrophotometer in a camera in some future, so that it can communicate the info as a spectrum, but that is completely beside the point. (One row of spectral dyes though would be really cool, no? Add a white transparant cup to your lens, capture the spectrum...)
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This discussion has in the last few posts about setting WB (if respecting the fact the OP is using LR) and had a simple question about subjective renderings:
“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” -Warren Buffett
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Yes, and they are completely irrelevant as far as whitepoint is concerned. The only thing we need to know is the whitepoint of the sensor at the time of capture. Nothing to do with the scene lighting. Merely its electronic state.
please be so kind - define what is "electronic state" of the sensor ;D ? and it given the word "state" you used please explain why'd that "state" can be not related to "scene lighting" "at the time of capture" ?
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What can happen (but not likely) is that the sensor is calibrated towards D65. The dyes are chosen and electronics set so the sensor behaves as if it has a CCT of ~6504K or thereabouts.
please define what is "calibrated" ? as noted no consumer level cameras have CFA that yield anything close to UniWB when illuminated by anything close to any daylight w/o using some magentish filters in lenses... hoi polloi like me understand "calibration" for a particular spectrum as getting all raw channel saturated equally when illuminated by (sensor that is, not the scene) that said spectrum... give me your definition of the "calibration" in terms of raw channel multipliers ? because there is nothing else raw converter can get (except SSFs of course).... manufacturer discloses what will be the mulltipliers when sensor is "illuminated" by D65 (or the scene consisting of WB target is "illuminated" by D65)... so define
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please be so kind - define what is "electronic state" of the sensor ;D ? and it given the word "state" you used please explain why'd that "state" can be not related to "scene lighting" "at the time of capture" ?
Electronic state of the sensor simply refers to the fact that the manufacturers can do all kinds of hocus pocus before the data is captured and stuffed into the raw file, which could include electronic adjustments to the sensor so it behaves differently but that we aren't aware of. Given the black box that the capture process really is for a raw data consumer, we simply want it to produce the single wp that corresponds to the state at time of capture.
This whitepoint is about the capture device or capture process. The capture process might change the whitepoint depending on scene lighting but quite obviously, it should not do so in the digital realm. Once the data is captured, they should refrain from further processing and simply communicate the original whitepoint of capture.
Can't explain it any better. Colorscience has a very clear definition of what whitepoint means for input devices. Obfuscating the entire idea with scene referred lighting or other profiling BS isn't typically helping get to a better procedure to actually control white balance (which was more or less what OP was asking for.)
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If we take the multipliers from your A7 as an example, and we deem equal R and B channel as the likely wp, then the CCT of the A7 is somewhere between 3200K and 6000K according to that list.
I am sorry - what does it mean "we deem equal R and B channel as the likely wp" ? all the pairs of multipliers above produce equal R & B channels ;D - that is how WB is defined - set of multipliers that make the data from all 3 channels equal, R * wbR = G * wbG = B * wbB (and wbG is assumed to be 1.0 usually in consumer level cameras give what kind CFA are used) ... do you actually mean some illuminant that
w/o using any multiplication produces equal saturation in R and B raw channels w/o any multiplication (so w/o any WB applied) ? one of such illuminant is already present in the list above - it is "0x7826 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent : 2228 1024 2256" with the good precision ... so well... we have what sensor "calibrated" for some Fluorescent spectrum then ?
It is that particular setting that we are interested in.
you are interested and you have that - for A7R2: "0x7826 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent: 2228 1024 2256", so what is the next move for a raw shot produced under tungsten incandescent bulb for example ?
Note also that the list provided in the raw data, is very odd from a procedural perspective: the camera obviously doesn't know which lighting it is capturing, and therefore it knows nothing about the temperature, or the required colorresponse.
camera does not know - but manufacturer does not know CFA (and their own typical lenses properties) properties and calculates and/or conducts experiments by illand provides the data that camera's firmware writes...
It could be capturing a sunset with low wp temperature, but requiring a daylight colorresponse. Or it could be capturing an incandescent scene with low temperature, requiring an incandescent colorresponse. The camera doesn't know, shouldn't care, and therefore, shouldn't communicate the info.
that is your personal opinion - the data above are as you can see for well defined cases and the setting that camera calculates as "AUTO" is of course a product of a guess - I'd rather have camera's guess included, because nobody is forcing me to use it.
You could potentially add maybe a spectrophotometer in a camera
I have Seconic C-7000, was a big waste of money ... I ended up not using it other then when creating camera profiles for my use with dcamprof.
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please define what is "calibrated" ? as noted no consumer level cameras have CFA that yield anything close to UniWB when illuminated by anything close to any daylight w/o using some magentish filters in lenses... hoi polloi like me understand "calibration" for a particular spectrum as getting all raw channel saturated equally when illuminated by (sensor that is, not the scene) that said spectrum... give me your definition of the "calibration" in terms of raw channel multipliers ? because there is nothing else raw converter can get (except SSFs of course).... manufacturer discloses what will be the mulltipliers when sensor is "illuminated" by D65 (or the scene consisting of WB target is "illuminated" by D65)... so define
That's exactly what I mean as well. It still doesn't mean the sensor whitepoint actually is D65, it simply means that the sensor would be calibrated to have a CCT that comes close.
I don't need the manufacturer to disclose all multipliers. I want them to tell me the whitepoint that they consider balanced. (Where the multipliers for R and B are equal for example). This may be different for different camera settings, where you could change the electronic state of the sensor under different conditions, but I don't think that is the case for any camera currently. Maybe in case of the old CCDs with precharging, or perhaps for different ISO settings it changes, but I wouldn't know. I don't want to know. I simply want the raw file to communicate the capture whitepoint.
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Electronic state of the sensor simply refers to the fact that the manufacturers can do all kinds of hocus pocus before the data is captured and stuffed into the raw file, which could include electronic adjustments to the sensor so it behaves differently but that we aren't aware of. Given the black box that the capture process really is for a raw data consumer, we simply want it to produce the single wp that corresponds to the state at time of capture.
still not clear what "Electronic state" exactly is
This whitepoint is about the capture device or capture process. The capture process might change the whitepoint depending on scene lighting but quite obviously, it should not do so in the digital realm. Once the data is captured, they should refrain from further processing and simply communicate the original whitepoint of capture.
what is the "original whitepoint of capture" ? you sound (by using the word "capture") like it might different for each shot then based on different illumination/different scene ? and yet above you were insisting that what you want does not depend on a specific illumination during the shot... what what do you really really want then ? is it something different potentially for each shot or is it something static for a given camera which is related to its CFA properties (like I suggested you want one of the infinite amount of different spectrums that will result in equal R & B raw channels saturation before applying WB) ?
Can't explain it any better.
if you can't then don't
Colorscience
says that WP depends on the illuminant ... so what do we do ? didn't you insist on some WP being indep. from that by introducing some "electronic state" ?
Obfuscating
the only obfuscation was from your side behind "Can't explain it any better." statement.
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"...hoi polloi like me understand "calibration" for a particular spectrum as getting all raw channel saturated equally when illuminated by (sensor that is, not the scene) that said spectrum...." -- that's exactly what I mean as well.
so illumination producing UniWB then (you saturate R & B not only equally between themselves but both equal to G channel) - and as I noted no real illumination will get that for consumer level cameras in real life situations, and using magenta filters (on light in studio or lenses in the wild) only helps to get close to that... but OK... now I still don't get an idea with one slider controlling 2 multipliers (we don't really need multiplier for the green channel for WB purposes) for R & B channels... also - may raw converted like RPP or as far as I recall Irididient developer (here I might be wrong) will allow you to dial in UniWB because they have controls for raw channel multipliers (for RPP there are no other controls - users always deal with raw channel multipliers) - so he were go - you start with what you want for a given shot... please tell us how do you want to manipulate in UI with 2 multipliers by one control now ?
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you are interested and you have that - for A7R2: "0x7826 WB RGB Levels Fluorescent: 2228 1024 2256", so what is the next move for a raw shot produced under tungsten incandescent bulb for example ?
Exactly, that is the question we need to answer from the perspective of a reasonably educated user/photographer!
So, the next move imo would be:
1. User selects incandescent response (from a pop up with profile choices). This changes the ICC profile but not the multipliers.
2. User checks the color considered the colorcast (this should for example show the color of illuminant A relative to D50 initially)
3. User can adjust a slider to remove, increase or even invert the colorcast.
The "color considered colorcast" is the interesting part here. It could initially be the color of the illuminant that is part of the colorresponse profile relative to D50. So, incandescent will initially show a yellow color, Cloudy Daylight would for example show a blue color.
You can then set it via:
1. Temperature and tint
2. A colorwheel or colorpicker
3. derive it from the image (automatically or via the sampler).
So that still gives you all the options you have now, except we no longer need to fiddle with an apparently inconsistent Temperature and tint combo that influence each other and may even change the responseprofile under some definitions.
The procedure is then very clear to the user:
1. Select colorresponse depending on lighting conditions
2. Select the colorcast, e.g. by sampling a graycard
3. Reduce colorcast to taste...
Apply the same logic to the sunset case, and you immediately should see the advantage of this over Temperature & tint as some kind of control over whitebalance. In the latter case it operates completely counter intuitive because it is referring to a traditional indication of filmresponse.
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Exactly, that is the question we need to answer from the perspective of a reasonably educated user/photographer!
So, the next move imo would be:
1. User selects incandescent response (from a pop up with profile choices). This changes the ICC profile but not the multipliers.
2. User checks the color considered the colorcast (this should for example show the color of illuminant A relative to D50 initially)
3. User can adjust a slider to remove, increase or even invert the colorcast.
The "color considered colorcast" is the interesting part here. It could initially be the color of the illuminant that is part of the colorresponse profile relative to D50. So, incandescent will initially show a yellow color, Cloudy Daylight would for example show a blue color.
You can then set it via:
1. Temperature and tint
2. A colorwheel or colorpicker
3. derive it from the image (automatically or via the sampler).
So that still gives you all the options you have now, except we no longer need to fiddle with an apparently inconsistent Temperature and tint combo that influence each other and may even change the responseprofile under some definitions.
The procedure is then very clear to the user:
1. Select colorresponse depending on lighting conditions
2. Select the colorcast, e.g. by sampling a graycard
3. Reduce colorcast to taste...
Apply the same logic to the sunset case, and you immediately should see the advantage of this over Temperature & tint as some kind of control over whitebalance. In the latter case it operates completely counter intuitive because it is referring to a traditional indication of filmresponse.
A lot of text to end up with where we started: move sliders to taste (your exact term above)!
"While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple." -Gerald W. Grumet
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still not clear what "Electronic state" exactly is
Like precharging in the days of CCDs. It may perhaps change the behavior of the separate channels and therefore the multipliers wouldn't be fixed. I presume no cmos camera currently does any analogue adjustments, but then, I don't know either. Nor do I know whether they preprocess some rawdata before it actually is filed. I simply call it the electronic state.
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A lot of text to end up with where we started: move sliders to taste (your exact term above)!
"While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple." -Gerald W. Grumet
Ha ha, are you trying to suggest I am a fool? In that case, just say so. I'm nearly grown up now and should be able to handle it. ;-)
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Ha ha, are you trying to suggest I am a fool? In that case, just say so. I'm nearly grown up now and should be able to handle it. ;-)
I'm not suggesting anything. Other than using your own writings to illustrate we move sliders and the like for all kinds of subjective image rendering as so many others in this thread have stated, using EXISTING tools (specifically LR which IS on topic).
You want to propose using CTT numbers to do this instead, knock yourself out. You want to propose specto-enabled cameras people here can use, build one. Please.
You want to re-code LR to behave as you believe it should handle WB alone, get cracking.
You want to answer the OP's questions about WB in LR, PLEASE begin.
I'll leave you and others another quote, from a fellow who not only understood raw processing but aided actual photographers and our industry, the late Bruce Fraser, with respect to your ideas as yet aimed for the OP:
"You can do all sorts of things that are fiendishly clever, then fall in love with them because they're fiendishly clever, while overlooking the fact that they take a great deal more work to obtain results that stupid people get in half the time. As someone who has created a lot of fiendishly clever but ultimately useless techniques in his day, I'd say this sounds like an example."
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I see.
I veered off topic.
My apologies.
In my enthusiasm I got carried away.
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One of the biggest challenges I have doing sunset photography is white balance.
As mentioned, the main issue with sunsets is that one of the main tenets of color science, Color Constancy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy), tends to fail at low CCTemperatures. Color Constancy is a perceptual feature of the Human Visual System that makes white look white whether the illuminant is D45 or D75. With a digital capture, white balance is one easy way to achieve an approximately similar compensation to what goes on in our brains when constancy is in effect. We effectively normalize all tones so that a particular neural (say that of your gray card) is in fact neutral (e.g. 100,100,100).
However, while that works fairly well in the middle of the range it doesn't near the extremes: for instance every kid knows that white actually looks yellowish to us in the low Ks under, say, candle light. So in those situations we don't expect a neutral white. If the rendered image is white balanced assuming color constancy, the result often looks unnatural to us, too cold. It doesn't help that most profiles treat anything below Tungsten as if it were Tungsten and viewing conditions are typically very, very different from taking conditions.
So until someone comes up with a better way of modeling our perception of color in the low temperatures, we are stuck having to creatively/manually modify white balance in conditions near the edges of the Temperature range like sunsets until a good/pleasing result is achieved. Often that just means increasing the Temperature slider a bit from what a gray card would suggest, as was done below.
Jack
(https://i2.wp.com/www.strollswithmydog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Monte_DSC_6978.jpg?ssl=1)
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Given how easy is to fool human vision, specially regarding colour tints, trying to find one single correct WB in a sunset is impossible. There is a whole range of correct WB's, the best will be the one you prefer, and you can even change your mind the following day. In brief: your question doesn't have a precise answer.
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbcubo.jpg)
You'll probably see the furniture in the red square as brown, but it's pure gray.
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbmano1.jpg)
You'll probably not see the skin of the guy as gray, but it is.
Accurate colour rendering, which is needed in other WB applications such as product, reproduction of pieces of art, costumes,... is a much simpler story. Or at least a story with an accurate answer.
Regards
PS:
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbpared.jpg)
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbmano2.jpg)
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Given how easy is to fool human vision, specially regarding colour tints, trying to find one single correct WB in a sunset is impossible. There is a whole range of correct WB's, the best will be the one you prefer, and you can even change your mind the following day. In brief: your question doesn't have a precise answer.
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbcubo.jpg)
You'll probably see the furniture in the red square as brown, but it's pure gray.
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbmano1.jpg)
You'll probably not see the skin of the guy as gray, but it is.
Accurate colour rendering, which is needed in other WB applications such as product, reproduction of pieces of art, costumes,... is a much simpler story. Or at least a story with an accurate answer.
Regards
PS:
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbpared.jpg)
(http://guillermoluijk.com/article/wb/wbmano2.jpg)
The beauty of simultaneous contrast. Is it just easy to fool the human vision or is it for a reason that evolution gave us that?
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One of the biggest challenges I have doing sunset photography is white balance. To be able to work consistently, I almost always have my camera set to "daylight" (exception will be indoors) - there's no point in using the camera's histograms to compare exposures if the WB is set to "auto" and thus potentially different for each shot!
One big problem here is "memory". I can't remember exactly what it looked like.
Using LR, the choices are:
* 2000K, Tint -24 (WB from clouds)
* 2850K, Tint 0 (auto)
* 4350K, Tint -47 (WB from yachts)
* 5500K, tint +10 (Daylight)
... all of the other "develop" settings are 0.
White Balance, when shooting sunsets, is seldom going to work by picking it from the scene. Here’s why: the “White Balance” picker is a way to measure the color of light falling on a neutral object, and eliminate the color cast so that the object looks neutral. But that is not what you want in a sunset shot. The colors of sunset are changes in the color of the light, not the objects (clouds, yachts, etc.) the lights fall on. You don’t want the yachts to appear white, you want them to reflect the color of the light that’s falling on them from the sunset. So you do not want to balance that color out.
What you are doing already by shooting Daylight Balance is the best starting point I know for reproducing the color of a sunset. It sets the raw developer up to show you how different the sunset light is from midday sun, and that’s exactly what you want. From there, adjust the sliders to taste.