Need Help With a White Balance Problem (filter, Canon, Nikon)
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Good thing when I went out to play with my new Nikon D5100 today that I also took along my trusty old Canon.
Headed up toward the mountains and took a detour to Campbell's Covered Bridge, the last extant covered bridge in the state. They've totally cleaned up the area and created a little park around it. It's fabulous!
Anyway, I haven't had much time to even look at the camera since I got it, much less use it. Used only the 18-55 kit lens with it today and a circular polarizer. Got some great shots. Unfortunately, many of them were shot with a tungsten white balance setting, which I didn't realize until later.
Without getting too technical on me, could someone please tell me a quick way to corect it in Photoshop Elements. I'm just too tired to play around or read a book. I don't normally make white balance mistakes, so I really don't have any idea. I figure, though, it's probaby a filter I can apply.
BTW, I later stopped for lunch and was planning on visiting a store down the road that I've been wanting to stop at for four years now. When I got out of my car, I noticed that on the lawn of an adjacent inn, there was a car show going on. Woohoo! My first car show photo shoot ever!
Not wanting to mess with the Nikon at that point, I got out my Canon SX10 IS and went to town. I can't wait to post some of my pics!
I eventually did make it to the shop down the road, and I got some great photos there too -- mostly out front and in the outdoor garden supply secton.
It's been a great day overall. Wish I could take y'all with me when I head back that way to shoot fall colors in a couple of weeks. They have started but still have a long way to go to peak.
Unfortunately, many of them were shot with a tungsten white balance setting, which I didn't realize until later.
Without getting too technical on me, could someone please tell me a quick way to corect it in Photoshop Elements.
If you are shooting in NEF or NEF+JPEG, and therefore have the RAW files, it's just plain easy. If you are shooting in JPEG only the conversion is not nearly as good.
With jpeg files if I don't want to spend too much time on a photo, I go to Image>Adjustments>Color Balance and just tweak the colors until it looks the way I want it. If it's a shot I really like and want to spend some more time on it, I adjust the colors in Curves. Keep in mind that is Photoshop 7.0, not Elements. I haven't used Elements in a while so I can't remember if the menus are the same in that regard or not. Lately I've been shooting RAW which makes it much easier.
If you're shooting raw (.NEF), opening in Elements should bring up Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which has a white balance section (towards the top). Use the eye-dropper and click on an area in your image that should be neutral gray and the WB will change accordingly.
I'm pretty sure I was shooting high resolution JPEGs because I didn't want to shoot RAW on my first outing with the camera when I have no idea how to process RAW yet, and just learning the camera is hard enough. But I promise to try RAW soon.
I'm pretty sure I was shooting high resolution JPEGs because I didn't want to shoot RAW on my first outing with the camera when I have no idea how to process RAW yet, and just learning the camera is hard enough. But I promise to try RAW soon.
make sure the program you are using will process RAW!...can't wait to see photo's!
I'm pretty sure I was shooting high resolution JPEGs because I didn't want to shoot RAW on my first outing with the camera when I have no idea how to process RAW yet, and just learning the camera is hard enough. But I promise to try RAW soon.
Put the camera in NEF+JPEG mode. For now you can use the JPEG image straight from the camera, but you can also work on the NEF files at your leisure and learn how it works. Initially you'll feel lucky to just process an image, but soon enough the trick will be to see if you can do at least as good as the JPEG from the camera, and the next thing you know you'll flat expect to do better than the camera can do.
And at that point you'll have a whole archive of NEF files that you can work on to get better results than you will settle for today.
NEF & JPEG mode uses lots of space on the card soooo...use as large a card as your camera will take and you can afford...get in the habit of randomly checking various sites for deals instead of laying out big buck.
check online as I pay between $8 to $20 for 8GB-16GB cards. I'm randomly checking for the Eye-Fi 8GB an just missed one for $25 about a month ago! dang!
NEF & JPEG mode uses lots of space on the card soooo...use as large a card as your camera will take and you can afford...get in the habit of randomly checking various sites for deals instead of laying out big buck.
check online as I pay between $8 to $20 for 8GB-16GB cards. I'm randomly checking for the Eye-Fi 8GB an just missed one for $25 about a month ago! dang!
My cameras all use dual CF cards, and I have enough 16GB cards to put two in each of them. Generally that allows for something like 600-700 shots per card. Previously, with dual 8 GB cards there actually were times when I'd fill up both cards and need a third before I could dump what I had to a computer. But I've been using these 16 GB cards for over a year now and can't recall ever needing more than two.
But that also brings up disk storage on the computer too, which also becomes a significant requirement. External USB/eSATA/Firewire drives in 500Gb, and 1 or 2 TB sizes are all pretty cheap these days, at about $100/TB. The eSATA interface is the fastest, and USB is the slowest, so choose accordingly if your computer can do something other than USB.
Even an older laptop, with an inexpensive 500GB USB drive, works well when traveling too!
Just keep in mind that disk drives fail, and the safe way to store images is to buy two of whatever disk drive is used, and always write a copy of everything to both drives as soon as possible. Some people prefer to travel light and just have a whole pocket full of CF or SD cards for the camera, and wait until the end of an extended trip away from their home computer to deal with putting everything on disk. That makes me too nervous though, as I want duplicate backups as soon as possible.
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