Making Accurate Digital Images - Edit or not?

[Hoax]

Hi all

I have been told recently that if you use a digital camera and you want your end result to look as close as it was you should edit your pictures in one way or another and not be satisfied by the raw output thinking it's most accurate because you didnt touch it afterwards.. for example I have been told that no camera will give an accurate white balance in simple mode or auto mode .. How accurate could manual mode be? and do you need instruments to set it up? now some other people say im wrong as it has been adjusted it can never give an accurate image anymore ..

Im sure it depends on the camera but my own experience is that my images do look more real after some adjustments ..

And another question, im using picasa to tune my white balance, I pick a neutral colour and the program tunes the rest, someone said the program would make all colours neutral if you do that, is this true? because I was thinking the program tunes the colours on how they should have looked using the neutral colour as a reference ..

Im a noob myself on this area so I was hoping you guys could clear this up for me

[Brammers]

It's certainly true that there's no such thing as a standardised capture. WB inconsistencies are one thing, but different sensors, different lenses, different lens coatings all subtly effect the way a shot looks - older or cheaper Sigma lenses are reknown for having a yellowish tint for example, whereas the Minolta lenses of the 60s were actually colour coded to enable accurate colour reproduction across the lens range.

The look also depends on metering - my 7D and apparantly Nikon's D200/300 (amongst others) meter very conservatively - they'll do everything possible to ensure that they don't clip highlights - this could bring down the overall brightness of a scene. Something like a D40 is set up to produce punchy jpgs right out of the camera.

So yes - if you're after 100% accuracy of a scene, there's more to it than leaving all camera settings on default.

What do you want? Do you want the scene to look exactly as it did - say for scientific or forensic reasons? In that case you're probably in need of Kelvin light meters and calibrators and other bits and pieces. Or do you want something that looks realistic but pleasing to the eye?

And another question, im using picasa to tune my white balance, I pick a neutral colour and the program tunes the rest, someone said the program would make all colours neutral if you do that, is this true? because I was thinking the program tunes the colours on how they should have looked using the neutral colour as a reference ..

As to this - I think it's generally suggested that you choose a neutral grey to WB from. This will certainly affect all the colours in the image, and i think the effect is even - it's like a film overlayed on the entire shot. Some colours appear more changed by this - white is a great example, getting whites white under strage or mixed lighting is a very fiddly process - something blue or red is a lot easier to get right.

[stylgeo]

Is just a true white balance you are after? And by saying "accurate" what exactly do you mean?

Firstly, why don't you set the white balance on your camera manualy before every shooting? I always carry a grey card with me, take a picture of it so it fills the frame and tell the camera to use that as reference to choose the white balance. This is different in each brand or model, for Canon it's in the second camera menu/custom white balance, choose the photo of the grey card and then set your white balance as custom. I don't know how to do this for other branded cameras, but this always gives you accurate white balance for every occasion.

When you would like to capture an "accurate" photo, I suppose you mean to capture it like you see it, right? Well, there are many problems there, not just white balance. The most prominent one is the difference in Dynamic Range between your eye sight and a camera sensor. In simple terms, your eyes can "see" a greater range of grey between shadowed areas and brightly lit areas than your camera can. So, your camera will capture pure black a long before your eye starts to loose all information on that spot. So what to do about that? Well, HDR, or High Dynamic Range Photography. But isn't that editing? Well, you edit just to present it as "accurate" as possible. But is accuracy really what you are after? Isn't bending reality part of the art of the photographer. If you chose to capture realistic photos, then you would only use 50mm lenses (in 35mm equivalent) That's the closest to our eyes "sharp focus area". But presenting the viewer something that he/she is not used to, like an ultra-wide-angle photo, captures the imagination, and makes the photo pleasant and extraordinary. Same with the compression of furthest objects with a long telephoto.

So, what if your white balance is off? It doesn't mean that it's wrong! I sometimes intentionally play with the white balance to give a more pleasing result. This is an example of a photo that gives different results by just changing the white balance. First one almost gives a feeling of moonlight on a beach, the second one gives a feeling of harsh summer sunset!

[Hoax]

With accurate I indeed meant with what my eyes would see and then get it as close to that with my camera allthough I know in my case this is nearly impossible because I have an Old Fuji Finepix S3000 which is really FAR from being high end, or could I still get an accurate image after editing?

Those pics look great by the way

[stylgeo]

I don't think that your camera has a manual white balance option. You can always take a photo of a grey card and use it as reference for your processing afterwards, use the same temperature that your photo of the gray card will give you to the rest of the images.

[senu]

Although the end point of the image is what your eyes see, only you can judge what your eyes saw at the time of taking the picture.

Shoot the same scence at the same time with 3 different camera with similar lenses on Auto , and the differences may be wide
The fact is that the Camera cannot really duplicate the eye in that way
While not all images need to be edited, and some only minimally.. you must not be scared to add some creative flair to the image by using editing tools.
Only Forensic type images are best left as in but this assumes ( sometimes wrongly) that the cameras native output is "accurate"
Many have colour tone, sharpness . contrast controls which are not dissimilar to what you do on the image afterwards

[Hoax]

Originally Posted by stylgeo

I don't think that your camera has a manual white balance option. You can always take a photo of a grey card and use it as reference for your processing afterwards, use the same temperature that your photo of the gray card will give you to the rest of the images.

yea, this will for sure get my picture closer to the real thing than without doing that.. right?

[senu]

Originally Posted by Hoax

yea, this will for sure get my picture closer to the real thing than without doing that.. right?

Yes this is how manual white balance is "calibrated" or achieved after the event

[Hoax]

Originally Posted by senu

Yes this is how manual white balance is "calibrated" or achieved after the event

another question, someone told me if you calibrate the white balance afterwards it will change all colours to neutral, even if you have oversaturated colours or too less colour on something..
is this true?

[senu]

Originally Posted by Hoax

another question, someone told me if you calibrate the white balance afterwards it will change all colours to neutral, even if you have oversaturated colours or too less colour on something..
is this true?

That is a bit of an oversimplified explanation. Sometimes the changes in other colours are more subtle
However since you seek colour accuracy, you should really do the white balance before any other adjustments
This is one of the advantages of shooting RAW.
At any rate if you feel that the WB correction is giving the image a cool "blue" look or a warm "orange" look, there is nothing to stop you from using other " tempratures" by trial and error till you get it just how you wish.
Dont forget that the Camera,(which has its own hardware based processing) and software you use afterwards are just tools to get you what you want

[Hoax]

I have an old fuji finepix s3000 I cant even setup white balance on it