White balancing accessories

[D'z Nutz]

What are you guys using for white balancing? I've been using a Whibal card for quite a few years and while it does the job, in some situations it left me wanting more.

I recently heard about X-Rite ColorChecker Passport and it sounds interesting. Anyone ever use this?

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[Mitsu3000gt]

I've always used the Colorchecker passport. It has a WB card on the back, and different gradients of WB for portrait and landscape.

I bought it for the custom profiles though, which are the best things ever. They are dead simple to make, and give you perfect color in any scenario. You make generic ones for sunlight, shade, overcast, etc. and then you can make custom ones on the spot for important shoots (eg. have a model hold it in front of her face for the first shot in that lighting). Adobe's stock profiles suck, so I used to waste a lot of time trying to tweak them to my liking, and now all I have to do it highlight groups of photos taken under the same lighting and click one button for great color from a custom profile.

As long as the Colorchecker is in one of your pictures, you're good to go for anything else taken under that same lighting. You are supposed to make different ones for every lens, and I do, but I have never been able to see a difference. You have to make different profiles for different cameras though, which is fine. It's also handy if you shoot more than one brand and want color to stay consistent between them when delivering photos to clients.

[gogreen]

There's also the "dual illuminant" feature where you can take two photos of the Passport under different lighting conditions to create one profile as a baseline, but agreed that the ability to make custom profiles is most powerful. Really handy tool.

[D'z Nutz]

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport: recommended by 2 out of 2 Beyond photogs.

I just ordered one. I like the whole profiling aspect of it and having as many bodies as I do, it'll come in very handy for consistency which I'm really anal about.

[blitz]

I just eyeball everything, and I bring a Leica, Nikon and Panasonic to a shoot. It would be really nice to be able to standardize across the range.

Let me know how you end up liking it as I'm in need of something similar.

[Mitsu3000gt]

How it works is once you load all your profiles into PS, it only shows the profiles you have made for the camera whose images you are working on.

For example if you were working on a Nikon image you might have the following list available to you in ACR:

D610 - 24-70 - Sunlight (Bare)
D610 - 24-70 - Sunlight (Polarizer)
D610 - 70-200 - Overcast
D610 - 70-200 - 11th Ave Church Interior
D610 - 14-24 - Interior Warm
D610 - 85 - Sep 27 Portrait Session

Then if you loaded a Canon or Leica image and went to the profiles section in ACR you might see the same list but for the other cameras. Then just pick the profile you want and voila. You can still do minor color tweaks if needed as that will be easier than going out and making a new custom profile.

You just take a RAW image of the Passport under whatever lighting or conditions you want the profile for, then save the RAW image as a DNG using ACR. Take that DNG, drop it into the Colorchecker software (it automatically discovers the squares), and in about 5 seconds it will make you a profile that you can name whatever you want. After that, restart Photoshop and you will see them in the ACR dropdown automatically. Works for LR too but I don't use LR.

There's also a profile manager so you can add/delete profiles easily from the list.

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by blitz
I just eyeball everything, and I bring a Leica, Nikon and Panasonic to a shoot. It would be really nice to be able to standardize across the range.

Let me know how you end up liking it as I'm in need of something similar.

Yeah for sure. You can even try it and decide yourself. I only need it for a shoot on the 8th after which you can have at it.

[taemo]

^might be curious to give it a try too, maybe split the cost?

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by taemo
^might be curious to give it a try too, maybe split the cost?

Doesn't really seem like something you share, especially since I'm almost never without my white balance card haha! But you're welcome to try it out

[taemo]

oh wait this the one you bring on site to get accurate colors! lol
yeah not gonna work for me, dont have the time or patience for that :rofl:
what are you shooting that you need to get accurate WB?

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by taemo
oh wait this the one you bring on site to get accurate colors! lol
yeah not gonna work for me, dont have the time or patience for that :rofl:
what are you shooting that you need to get accurate WB?

I pretty much use a grey card for anything and everything unless it's outdoors and sunny. It'll be especially useful for me in mixed lighting situations like some wedding receptions.

[gogreen]

My primary reason for getting one was to help make sure skin tones were accurate (for me the situation I ran into most often was shooting in partial shade where trees and grass were creating weird colour casts) and it works really well for that. It doesn't take much time to grab a shot of it to have for later, and it was actually a pretty good icebreaker for portrait sessions to have people hold it up for test shots.