setting white balance?

[meadowesky]

I have a canon S2 and I know it has an option to set the light balance however, I dont quite know how to use it. What am I supposed to be aiming at? Do I set it to an actual piece of white paper next to the bead or at the bead itself?
Thanks

[Kevan]

I have a Nikon D50 and I have tried setting my white balance all sorts of ways,even taking a shot of white paper in the sunshine. It never came out right and I use the automatic setting. Works for me.

But I would like to know what someone who understands this function has to say.

[Anne Ricketts]

I have a Nikon Coolpix and I have my white balance set on Incandesent (sp?) because I use 2 halongen bulbs. I shoot it on a gradient white to black background. That's the only way I have been able to get the true colors of the beads.

[meadowesky]

with my white balance option it has you just shoot the camera at something. and it sets it. I also have the option of setting it to the
"indoor, fireworks, snow, etc." but I tend to use the other setting. or try to LOL

[Emily]

You set it to something that's plain white under the exact lighting that you'll be using to shoot your bead. You want to fill your camera's view with the white. What you're doing is teaching the camera what white looks like under those lighting conditions. If you have the bead in the frame when you're setting the white balance, the camera will be very very confused.

Some people say to use a plain gray card instead of plain white when you're setting the white balance this way. Not sure why -- maybe that's a trick to get your pictures a little lighter?

One thing to watch out for -- I just discovered this about my newest camera (secondhand, so it's not technically a "new" camera). Setting the white balance this way is pretty easy, BUT it defaults back to the automatic white balance after every shot. You can't set the manual white balance and tell the camera to keep using this white balance until it's changed. Bit of a PITA. Check to see whether your camera keeps using the manual (preset, whatever it calls it) white balance after you set it. Mine's a Fuji F810, by the way.

I think setting the white balance this way seems like the most sensible thing to do, rather than try to use a pre-programmed option and then mess with it later in Photoshop or whatever. I was reading some of Scott Tanner's advice last night, and was surprised that he didn't say anything about it. Maybe there are drawbacks I don't understand.

[JanMD]

What Emily said about a white piece of paper in the exact same lighting conditons that you are going to shoot in.

More here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/whitebalance.htm

If you shoot in Camera Raw format, you can make adjustments to the white balance (among other elements) to whole batches of images at the same time in Photoshop CS2. I don't know if you can do this big batch processing in earlier Photoshop iterations. In any event, if a whole batch of images needs exactly the same tweaking, you can do them all at once. Keen! Real time-saver.

Jan

[meadowesky]

thanks everyone!! I also usually shoot in bright sun and somewhat liked the pictures but now thanks to Kevan's suggestion in another thread on overcast days..

45412
45413
45414
45415

yep a whole lot of frit. Hey, it was refill time between a two weekend show :)

[Kevan]

Oh thanks! That's what I needed to hear. That makes sense.

I'll try that tomorrow.

Brandi those look great!

[Lara]

Those look wonderful! Good job.