RAW and white balance

[rgravel]

Hi all.

I've started to use the RAW mode on my Canon G5, and I've read a bit about white balance and its importance. I've also heard about white cards , and grey cards !?!

How and when do you use a white (or grey?) card?

Lets say I go out to shoot some pics, and I see this beautifull scenery. Do I take a picture holding the card at harms lengh, and use this to correct the color balance of my following shots ? I know I can do alterations later in PSE-3, but I'd rather take the best possible shot in the first place instead of correcting later.

Thanks in advance. :)

[Chuck S.]

Congratulations on starting to use RAW mode; I think you're really going to like the results, especially when you start using the RAW plug-in that's part of PSE3.

Lots of ways to deal with white balance, but including a photo of a white card in your picture is a good one. Alternatively, if there's a pure white object in your picture, you don't necessarily need the card; you'll be able to use the white area in the image to do your white balance correction in the RAW editor. There's an eyedropper icon in the upper left corner of the RAW screen; select that, click on the white area, and you have your proper white balance (at least theoretically!).

The middle grey card is used to correct color casts, which may be more noticeable in the midtones than the white (highlights). Similar thing; if you can take a photo with the grey card present, you can later create a levels adjustment layer in PSE 3 that corrects the image with the grey card to eliminate any color cast; then you can copy the adjustment layer to other images taken in the same conditions. Works very well in many cases.

Good luck with your G5, RAW, and tone cards!

Chuck

[rgravel]

Many thanks for the explanation Chuck.

I had a feeling I could use pure whites, but wasn't sure. And with all that snow (at least in my part of the world), it should be quite easy :wink:

Thanks again :)