Photography & More

In my previous post I gave a quick explanation about this mysterious term a lot of photographers have heard about but don’t really understand. In this post I’ll explain how to correct white balance using a grey card.

Just to be clear, I use a Nikon D90, I shoot in RAW and use Lightroom 2 for my photo editing, but all major camera brands allow RAW shooting and the same applies to image editing software.

White balance is a term that refers to the temperature of light recorded by your digital camera. Don’t be concerned about the technical terms as they’re not that important for most of us. However you will be concerned when you see a picture from your digital camera with a horrible blue, orange or purple hue and more likely than not, you’ll want to do something about it.

In Lightroom 2, it’s pretty simple to adjust the white balance using the ‘Temp’ slider (see this post). You can also adjust the colour tint using – you guessed it – the ‘Tint’ slider.

For the best results you probably need to adjust both sliders, but there is a much simpler way and one which gives you the best results with simple click. This is digital photography’s missing link and it’s called a grey card. A grey card is essentially a neutral colour card (even though it’s grey) which you can use to correct the white balance of your images when the camera’s sensor gets it wrong. There are various types of grey cards, but I would recommend a Whibal, since it’s tough, small, affordable and most importantly quick and easy to use.

This little piece of plastic enables me record the correct light temperature and to use that temperature on photos I took under the same light. For example, I want to shoot a temple near to where I live just outside of Tokyo. On my camera, I’ve set my white balance to ‘Auto’ since when shooting RAW it’s irrelevant because you can adjust it later. Don’t concern yourself with ‘Cloudy’, ‘Direct sunlight’ or any other camera settings because, let me stress, they’re irrelevant when shooting RAW.

Step 1:

Take a picture of the grey card under the same light that you want to shoot your subject. This is your reference shot for editing later on. As you can see, there is a blue tinge in this picture.

Step 2:

Shoot your subject and if you think the light conditions have changed, shoot another reference shot. The same applies to this shot, I don’t like the blue tinge and need to correct it later on.

Step 3:

After importing your photos into Lightroom 2, open your reference shot (the one with the picture of the grey card. On the top right hand panel below the histogram, under the word ‘Treatment’, you’ll see an ink dropper. Click on it and move the dropper over the grey card and click again. In most cases the colour tone of the picture will change and will look a lot different i.e. no weird colour tones.

Step 4:

So now you have a great shot of your grey card  with the correct white balance, bravo! Click either ‘Edit-Copy’ or using a keyboard ‘Command C’ on a Mac and ‘Control C’ on a pc. A window will open up, titled ‘Copy Settings’. Click on ‘Check None’ since all we’re concerned with is white balance. Check the ‘White Balance’ box and then click ‘Copy’.

Step 5:

Open the shot that needs white balance correction and click ‘Edit-Paste’ or using a keyboard ‘Command V’ on a Mac and ‘Control V’ on a pc. Your picture will look a lot different and most likely will have the correct white balance. From here on, continue with your normal workflow. Compare the top and bottom pictures and you’ll see how much better the bottom picture looks with the correct white balance.

White Balance FAQS:

Q: Can I use a piece of grey paper or something else of a similar colour?

A: You can, but a grey card has been designed and calibrated to be neutral, a piece of paper has not, so you’ll still end up with the incorrect white balance if you use something inferior.

Q: If white balance is so important why have I never seen anyone else using a grey card?

A: Good point, some professionals or serious amateurs adjust the white balance without a grey card and they are happy with the results.

Q: So why should I use one?

A: Sometimes no matter what I try, I just can’t seem to get the right white balance, a grey card solves this problem.

Q: I used a grey card and my image didn’t look much different.

A: In this case your camera probably got the white balance spot on. Cameras do get the white balance right at times; a grey card is really useful when your camera can’t.

Q: Wow, my image ‘popped’!

A: A good reason to use a grey card.

Q: Can I adjust the white balance if I shoot JPEG?

A: You can but there are limitations, in the past a lot of photo editors were limited to using RAW images to adjust white balance. Nowadays, that’s changed, but I would strongly recommend shooting RAW.

Q: I prefer shooting JPEG and want to get the white balance correct before I shoot, how can I be sure of getting it right?

A: You can’t. There are detailed explanations in the camera manuals on how to set the white balance before you shoot. I tried this and found it way to complicated and time consuming. Your time should be spent taking photos not wasted trying to record the correct white balance.

Q: So will my images look better if I shoot in RAW compared to shooting in JPEG?

A: No, people choose different formats for different reasons and both have advantages and disadvantages. This is a hotly debated topic, which I don’t want to be drawn into. I can only say that I prefer RAW because of the flexibility it allows in terms of image processing which JPEG does not.