MobiWorkshop MW2 White Balance

[FundyBrian]

Exactly, if rizole is showing us a grey cardigan and he wants to show us that it is that exact shade of grey, then the wb is obviously failing.

If the scene is of a woolen cardigan on a chair and that is purely the objective, surely the colour isn't that important?

For advertising or any kind of product sale I'd totally agree that exact colour was extremely important. With others types of photography especially those with artistic licence, I'd say having the exact colour was not so important (unless my skin is purple and my hair is green).

I guess there's also the thorny issue of monitor calibration as well

Yes, true enough. Rizole’s test also reveals how easy it is to get off-colour results.

I generally don’t care that much if the colour is precisely accurate as long as it is pleasing. Personally, in my so-called artistic expression, I like something better than reality. But even that has its basis in reality. Like reality with one layer of smog removed.

Once we go into the realms of artistic fancy then in many cases the objects are used for some other purpose than to show what they look like so accurate colour is secondary.

There’s an office not far from here where the staff often draw upon a bank of photos kept on the office server. They use the pictures in AV presentations. (Oh dear, projectors are another can of worms). The people using the pictures are not supposed to alter the colour of the photos because the office has not invested in calibrated monitorsf for them, except for the garphics department. That’s where the colour work is done. The general idea is, these pictures have already been corrected so don’t mess with them. Without a calibrated monitor you really have no idea if you are correcting the colour, or ruining it. A case of the rose-tinted-glasses. Or green-tinted, or whatever. Likewise with contrast. Also, your perception of colour on a screen can change depending on the environment you are working in. Today it is sunlight, tomorrow, cloudy. This evening, artificial lighting.

All of my monitors are calibrated, monthly. I can even calibrate my iPhone and iPad screen. Unfortunately, there is no system-wide provision as yet for colour calibrating cell phone screens. I can only use my colour calibrated view within the one app and I can only view the photos in that app. It has no provision for adjusting images. It is useful for occasionally checking to see how the calibrated and uncalibrated views compare. From what I have seen so far, my iPhone screens have been pretty close to the calibrated version. As they say, close enough for government work.

If you were in the business of making work for printing, like brochures, ads, etc., and you deal with a commercial printing house to get the work printed, then you must have a calibrated monitor. Otherwise, you don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to evaluating the resulting colour in the finished work. If they hear you don’t have a calibrated monitor they can disavow any responsibility for how the colour turns out.

 

[FundyBrian]

I'm not easily upset Brian

I’m just pulling your leg. You know how every story needs some controversy to make it more exciting.

 

[RoseCat]

I totally agree with RoseCat, her description of a typical mobile phone photographer is right when she says "un-photographer-like".
I'm not sure the old rules apply anymore do they?

Truthfully, I was this way when I used a digital camera. And when I used an SLR all the tech stuff I needed to know felt intrusive to my “style” of creating. Although I did love the dark room... and hand tinting images. I felt like I found the perfect sweet spot with mobile photography and apps.

 

[rizole]

If I had to think of this photographic color wheel and try to edit with that in mind....

How does this help me

I don't really get it

surely the colour isn't that important?

I feel I've been having this class of conversation with my kids recently, especially when it comes to some school subjects.
"I'll never use calculus when I'm older...why are they teaching us this stuff?"
"I have no interest in terminal moraines."
"Just teaching it to get us through the exam."

I always start my answer with, they aren't teaching you [whatever], they are teaching you to think.
It's a bit different here as, hopefully, we're all practiced at thinking but how about this for an argument:

One of the ways humans develop their cognition is through chunking information. So kids start learning to read by recognising individual letters. Later they learn to chunk those letters into words. Once they master that, they no longer need to recognise the individual letters, they just see the word. Although when you see a word that is new to you you might still have to fall back to parsing small sections a few times to get a feel of it before being able to see it as an individual chunk in it's own right.

This chunking is everywhere and it's expansive. Chances are there are songs, possibly many, you can sing by heart. You might be able to reproduce the base line and melody while you're at it. There's a complex 3/4/5 minute chunk of information right there.

One of the things we know about the brain is that it is plastic and deeply interconnected. And many of those interconnections can be novel and new thoughts, experiences, behaviors emerge. People with synesthesia, for example, have connections between parts of the brain that the neurotypical don't and may experience numbers as colours or sounds as smells.

One of the things we don't know is what will interconnect, what chunks will chunk with what other chunks. You might not be interested in the details of white balance but if you don't know about it, you can't have that information be able to interconnect with something else in your head and a new insight emerge, an original thought, a eureka moment or the germ of a new project germinate. After all, if people had never learned dull and complex technical stuff and chunked it together, we wouldn't have iPads now.

Of course you still might not want to engage with the topic but now you know at least one way it could be of use to you.

 

[RoseCat]

Not that I disagree but now I have a proper understanding of what's going wrong when it does go wrong I think I'm in a much better position to correct it, either in post processing or in settings, before I take the photo. The times my phone has failed on red objects.....

I’m going to try and open my mind to learning something from the *other* color wheel.... we’ll see if it *sticks*.

 

[RoseCat]

One of the things we don't know is what will interconnect, what chunks will chunk with what other chunks. You might not be interested in the details of white balance but if you don't know about it, you can't have that information be able to interconnect with something else in your head and a new insight emerging, an original thought, a eureka moment or the germ of a new project. After all, if people never learned dull and complex technical stuff and chunked it together, we'd never have developed iPads.

Of course you still might not want to engage with the topic but now you know at least one way it could be of use to you.

Thanks for this, Rizole. Very thoughtful, and your words are helping me have more of an open mind to techy stuff, which I will admit I have some aversion to.

"I'll never use calculus when I'm older...why are they teaching us this stuff?"
"I have no interest in terminal moraines."
"Just teaching it to get us through the exam.”

Yep.... that was me too.

 

[RoseCat]

I'm conflicted between technical and artistic, but I do know fstops white balance and focussing do not inspire me to make photographs, maybe I'm more organic than I thought I was (and definitely a bad student in Catherine's class )

On the contrary.... sounds like you’d fit in nicely in my type of class.

 

[FundyBrian]

I feel I've been having this class of conversation with my kids recently, especially when it comes to some school subjects.
"I'll never use calculus when I'm older...why are they teaching us this stuff?"
"I have no interest in terminal moraines."
"Just teaching it to get us through the exam."

I always start my answer with, they aren't teaching you [whatever], they are teaching you to think.
It's a bit different here as, hopefully, we're all practiced at thinking but how about this for an argument:

One of the ways humans develop their cognition is through chunking information. So kids start learning to read by recognising individual letters. Later they learn to chunk those letters into words. Once they master that, they no longer need to recognise the individual letters, they just see the word. Although when you see a word that is new to you you might still have to fall back to parsing small sections a few times to get a feel of it before being able to see it as an individual chunk in it's own right.

This chunking is everywhere and it's expansive. Chances are there are songs, possibly many, you can sing by heart. You might be able to reproduce the base line and melody while you're at it. There's a complex 3/4/5 minute chunk of information right there.

One of the things we know about the brain is that it is plastic and deeply interconnected. And many of those interconnections can be novel and new thoughts, experiences, behaviors emerge. People with synesthesia, for example, have connections between parts of the brain that the neurotypical don't and may experience numbers as colours or sounds as smells.

One of the things we don't know is what will interconnect, what chunks will chunk with what other chunks. You might not be interested in the details of white balance but if you don't know about it, you can't have that information be able to interconnect with something else in your head and a new insight emerge, an original thought, a eureka moment or the germ of a new project germinate. After all, if people had never learned dull and complex technical stuff and chunked it together, we wouldn't have iPads now.

Of course you still might not want to engage with the topic but now you know at least one way it could be of use to you.

Very well said. I certainly don’t spend any time thinking about white balance or depth of field by itself. It is just other pieces of information I can draw upon should the need arise. Over time it just becomes how you see photographically - the similarities and differences between what you see and what the photographic process can deliver. Sometimes one specific little bit of information is just what you need to make something work. Sometimes it is enough to just have a general impression of an idea to know what to look for.

The neuroscience about what is going on in the left and right slides of the brain are interesting to me, as well.
Generally, we have the logical side and the artistic side and you get your best results when both sides of the brain work together. But when you look at the brain the two sides really are quite separate and the interconnecting pathways are few compared to other areas of the brain.
One thing I found especially noteworthy is that when you exercise certain pathways in the brain over and over they become easier to access. Photography is one of those pursuits where working with both sides of you brain at once would be very valuable - linking the creative imagination side with the practical execution side.

 

[RoseCat]

You can skip all that part and mindlessly just press the shutter button but your chances of success are greatly reduced.

Hmmm... that’s basically what I do 100% of the time. Well, I compose the photo inside the viewfinder then press the shutter button. I suppose if I was trying to master studio photography then that method would be problematic....

There is no division between technical and artistic. You need both in good balance. Photography is a highly technical art form. To do artistic work you need to know what you’re doing. Perhaps you can accidentally make something artistic on occasion but to do it consistently it really helps if you know what you’re doing.

Either I’m the exception to your rule, or I’m delusional and my photography sucks. <shrugs>

 

[FundyBrian]

Thanks for this, Rizole. Very thoughtful, and your words are helping me have more of an open mind to techy stuff, which I will admit I have some aversion to.


Yep.... that was me too.

I can so relate to those schoolday blahs, too. So many things I was sure I would never need to know after the exam had passed by. But then one day in physics class when I was sitting only half awake something niggled at me when the teacher began to talk about resonant frequencies in a pipe and suddenly I realized the direct application with how tuned exhaust works on a car with headers. Half asleep to wide awake in less than a second.
I was sure I would never need to know anything about log functions until a few years later when I wanted to calculate reciprocity failure exposure correction for the different types of films I was using. I couldn’t remember how to do it of course but I remembered what to look for and was able to use it quite successfully in my photography. Up until that time I had had to guess how much correction was needed and do lots of bracketing to be sure I got something usable. So much wasted time and film, and money. With that calculation I could hit the right exposure every time.

 

[FundyBrian]

Hmmm... that’s basically what I do 100% of the time. Well, I compose the photo inside the viewfinder then press the shutter button. I suppose if I was trying to master studio photography then that method would be problematic....


Either I’m the exception to your rule, or I’m delusional and my photography sucks. <shrugs>

I didn’t make any rule. And I suspect you know more than you are aware of. You have assimilated all sorts if photographic knowledge through the years so they become automatic.

 

[RoseCat]

I didn’t make any rule.

I’m referring to “There is no division between technical and artistic. You need both in good balance. Photography is a highly technical art form.” I would consider myself extremely *untechnical*.

 

[ImageArt]

Lets all ponder on the shade of Ann's slippers awhile

I’ll have you know that those slippers have lots of history

And anyhow, everybody is so busy contemplating their navel that my humble little question to a real attempt to understand this has done unanswered!

 

[RoseCat]

I’ll have you know that those slippers have lots of history

 

[rizole]

I’ll have you know that those slippers have lots of history

And anyhow, everybody is so busy contemplating their navel that my humble little question to a real attempt to understand this has done unanswered!

Doing an image search, and from what FundyBrian has written (something about white balance taking a reference from non-coloured parts of a scene) I think it can be white, grey or black.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=white+balance+card&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images

 

[ImageArt]

Doing an image search, and from what FundyBrian has written (something about white balance taking a reference from non-coloured parts of a scene) I think it can be white, grey or black.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=white+balance+card&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images

Thanks, Rizole.

 

[rizole]

Thanks, Rizole.

Now can we get back to the matter in hand, my navel?

 

[ImageArt]

Now can we get back to the matter in hand, my navel?

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[FundyBrian]

Well, I don’t know whether I did this correctly, but I went into ProCamera took a pic, then switched on AWB and messed around a bit. I put a white card behind the camera and happened to hold down the WB symbol and it said Calibrated to Grey Card. So should I have had a grey card??

These were the results. They were quite similar. The corrected image was definitely more accurate.

View attachment 119572
View attachment 119573

You can see that when there are many tones in the image, especially if there are patches of white or black, the AWB will have better reference points to reach the right colour balance. The AWB will assume that any tones bright enough to be at the far bright end of the scale really are supposed to be white and the darkest tones are supposed to be black. That isn’t always true but when it is true you get a better result than if those white and black reference points are not present. However, it is better to use the measuring method you used. Z

Your question about the white card vs grey card: Ideally it should be a purpose-made white balance card. These are grey but not the same grey as an 18% grey card used for exposure readings. A white balance card is designed to be spectrally neutral in any type of lighting. A grey card is not necessarily spectrally neutral since reading exposure doesn’t require it. A grey card is much more common and likely to be on hand than a white balance card which I presume is why some apps mention “grey card” in the white balance calibration. I have noticed that some grey cards say they can be used for white balance but generally speaking they were not designed for that purpose and may not be neutral grey. I have a variety of grey cards and they vary in colour from slightly yellowish to bluish. When you can actually see the off neutral colour it definitely wont be good for white balance. Having said that, you can also by sets of white balance cards that vary in colour on purpose. For instance: you might want to have a slightly warmer or cooler colour balance that the neutral card would give.
In my experience the pure white photo mount board works just as well as the white balance card in daylight conditions. No matter what card you put in front of your camera the auto-exposure adjusts the exposure so the card looks like the 18% grey card anyhow. You will find it hard to find any white paper that is as white as the photo mount board. This isn’t photo mat board. The mount board is used to mount the picture on before matting. The surface of the white mount board is a bit fragile and easily smudged just by regular handling so it needs to be replaced when it isn’t clean anymore, but it is so cheap that it isn’t a problem.
Something to be aware of with white paper, and white cloth. In order to get them that white they sometimes add fluorescent brighteners and I’m not sure exactly what effect that has on the colour reading. I think you can detect the presence of fluorescent brighteners using a black light.

 

[ImageArt]

You can see that when there are many tones in the image, especially if there are patches of white or black, the AWB will have better reference points to reach the right colour balance. The AWB will assume that any tones bright enough to be at the far bright end of the scale really are supposed to be white and the darkest tones are supposed to be black. That isn’t always true but when it is true you get a better result than if those white and black reference points are not present. However, it is better to use the measuring method you used. Z

Your question about the white card vs grey card: Ideally it should be a purpose-made white balance card. These are grey but not the same grey as an 18% grey card used for exposure readings. A white balance card is designed to be spectrally neutral in any type of lighting. A grey card is not necessarily spectrally neutral since reading exposure doesn’t require it. A grey card is much more common and likely to be on hand than a white balance card which I presume is why some apps mention “grey card” in the white balance calibration. I have noticed that some grey cards say they can be used for white balance but generally speaking they were not designed for that purpose and may not be neutral grey. I have a variety of grey cards and they vary in colour from slightly yellowish to bluish. When you can actually see the off neutral colour it definitely wont be good for white balance. Having said that, you can also by sets of white balance cards that vary in colour on purpose. For instance: you might want to have a slightly warmer or cooler colour balance that the neutral card would give.
In my experience the pure white photo mount board works just as well as the white balance card in daylight conditions. No matter what card you put in front of your camera the auto-exposure adjusts the exposure so the card looks like the 18% grey card anyhow. You will find it hard to find any white paper that is as white as the photo mount board. This isn’t photo mat board. The mount board is used to mount the picture on before matting. The surface of the white mount board is a bit fragile and easily smudged just by regular handling so it needs to be replaced when it isn’t clean anymore, but it is so cheap that it isn’t a problem.
Something to be aware of with white paper, and white cloth. In order to get them that white they sometimes add fluorescent brighteners and I’m not sure exactly what effect that has on the colour reading. I think you can detect the presence of fluorescent brighteners using a black light.

Thanks, Brian

 

[FundyBrian]

What makes it worse?
I would like to offer a couple of methods to fix particular colour shifts.
This is a problem I have had when photographing the red rocks along the shore here. The red/orange tones sometimes come out too strong with only a little increase in saturation, especially in HDR images. This is no doubt because it combines the enhanced red-orange from 3 pictures.

So what colour will I focus on? Red? Orange? Orange is not a typical colour to find in the usual adjustments.
The usual methods of reducing the red-orange colour excess generally results in dulling the rest of the image too much while I just want to fix the specific colour.

This is Instaflash Pro. What I like about it is the selection of very specific adjustments it offers. I have seen other apps do similar things since then. The sliding row of icons at the bottom is just half of them. Light EQ, Tone EQ, and Color EQ are the main things that interest me.

Here is the other half.

Here is have selected the Colour EQ item. A row of 8 colour regions pops up. You can see you can adjust any of those 8 colours for Saturation, Hue, and Brightness. Unlike many types of colour adjustments these are very focused in a narrow region. These colour “knobs” are like the tone controls on an analogue stereo set where you might have Treble, Mid, and Bass tone adjustments. Zero (or flat) at the top. Increase to the right, decrease to the left.

What colour to adjust, red or orange. Here’s something I have found very useful through the years when trying to identify and fix colour shifts. When it isn’t easy to decide exactly what is wrong with the colour try to see what makes it worse. Here I have cranked up the orange. Yep, pretty awful. So then I reset it to zero again.

Here I have cranked up the Red to the max. Hmmmm. It isn’t as bad as the Orange. Reset it back to zero. That tells me Orange is the right colour to adjust so and I go back to the Orange.

If you look at the Orange dial you can see I have cut back the orange by 4 steps and that looks very much the way I remember the rock colour. The orange was adjusted without affecting the other colours in the scene. The only drawback is that all of the orange, from light to dark has been equally reduced where I might have preferred to only adjust the orange from mid-tone downwards. To do that I would need curve adjustments.

The Cyan Hue adjustment is nice for shifting the colour of a cyan sky back towards blue. However, another reason why skies look too cyan is when there is a lot of red in the picture and the AWB moves towards cyan to compensate. So moving the Hue a bit towards Blue would probably be a good idea.

 

[FundyBrian]

Well, I don’t know whether I did this correctly, but I went into ProCamera took a pic, then switched on AWB and messed around a bit. I put a white card behind the camera and happened to hold down the WB symbol and it said Calibrated to Grey Card. So should I have had a grey card??

These were the results. They were quite similar. The corrected image was definitely more accurate.

View attachment 119572
View attachment 119573

I went to have another look at ProCamera since I had missed the grey card calibration that you mentioned. Must have come in on an update and I didn’t notice the addition. Just to make a little correction. When you make the AWB symbol appear on the screen you are not turning on AWB. AWB is on all the time. Having the white balance icon (currently showing it is on AWB) on the screen gives you access to manual white balance controls. A quick tap on the AWB symbol shows you the current colour temperature reading, the left box is Colour Temperature, the right box is tint. Each can be manually adjusted by sliders. That part might be interesting but not very useful unless you have some means to read the colour temperature with a hand held meter.
A long press on the AWB button, as you described, makes a reading off a white balance card. To me that is the exciting part.
It works pretty much like the white balance lock in PureShot.

 

[FundyBrian]

Here are some more examples of Auto White Balance and reading off a white balance card. This time using ProCamera.
These pictures are not edited in any way except being reduced in size to 750 x 1000 px for uploading.

This is the colour correct version using the White Balance card.

AWB version. The brass turned to pewter.

The AWB version first this time.

The corrected version using the white balance card. This pair probably shows the biggest difference.

Incidentally, these coloured backgrounds are silk-screened on heavy paper. They are a set I bought some 30 years ago but they are a bit wild for anything except graphic stuff.

A screen shot in ProCamera showing the White Balance control icon turned on, which makes manual control of white balance possible.
If you position the White Balance card in fron of the camera at the subject position, patting attention to the lighting direction, then long-press the AWB icon...

A message briefly appears saying “calibrated to grey card” and then this appears on screen. A White Balance lock icon and the current colour temperature and Tint readings. When the WB is not locked you can tap on either the colour temperature or Tint boxes and a slider appears where you can make manual adjustments to the colour settings.

Here’s another test. I wondered if the green was complicating things by adding another colour to the mix so I removed the glass part. However I thing the metal part is supplying more info in terms of highlight and shadow tones that the AWB assumes to be white and black. This is the AWB version. The warm tones of the brass are gone. There is some blue/cyan tint in the shadow areas.

Here is the White Balance Card version. That looks the same as the objects in real life.

 

[terse]

This is Instaflash Pro. What I like about it is the selection of very specific adjustments it offers. I have seen other apps do similar things since then. The sliding row of icons at the bottom is just half of them. Light EQ, Tone EQ, and Color EQ are the main things that interest me.

ACDSee Pro is based on Instaflash Pro and offers the same adjustments, implemented the same way. (Like you, I use Light EQ, Tone EQ, and Color EQ the most.) It also offers a brush for applying selective adjustments, something that Instaflash Pro doesn't have.

Another app that offers similar color HSL and light EQ adjustments is Ultralight.

 

[FundyBrian]

ACDSee Pro is based on Instaflash Pro and offers the same adjustments, implemented the same way. (Like you, I use Light EQ, Tone EQ, and Color EQ the most.) It also offers a brush for applying selective adjustments, something that Instaflash Pro doesn't have.

Another app that offers similar color HSL and light EQ adjustments is Ultralight.

Can you show an example of how you use this? I’m thinking it is something that would be helpful for people to see.

Another app that interests me is MaxCurve. I use curves all the time in Photoshop but in a way the corrections in InstaFlash Pro, or AC/DC Pro are easier to use. However, MaxCurve does something different in that you have access to all the curve types at once, RGB, CMYK, LAB, HSL, Lightness. In Photoshop, when you are editing an RGB image you only have the RGB curves available to you.
But if you think about it, with RGB & CMY curves at the same time you have direct access to all 3 planes of the colour wheel and whatever direction you want to work.
Also, if you try some of the presets in MaxCurve and look at all the curves you can see how that preset is made. Some of them are quite inciteful to examine.