[lfc1892]

Hi folks. I own a Canon sx200is, which is a nice little point and shoot, but fancied something a little more interesting and that would offer better quality. Managed to get myself an Olympus e410 DLSR for £200 in MINT condition. It takes great shots with very little noise and apart from lack of image stabilisation is a great camera.

I started messing about with RAW files but found that when I shoot RAW, white balance is still applied to the shots. I read Olympus' site and they say quite clearly that white bal, exposure etc are not processed at all in Raw files. I opened the shots with Photoshop and it was definitely recognised as a RAW file. Is this normal? Or is this a fault with the camera?

Thanks guys.

[shotokan101]

Possibly a daft question - but how do you know the WB is being processed and not simply recorded ?

If I recall correctly when you open a RAW file from any camera in an editing app. which supports it then the image is initially displayed with the WB that was used to take the shot - this does not really "mean" anything as you can simply select an alternative WB - so in short not really sure why you think you havde a problem - what are you expectin PS to do when you open the images ?

JIm

[OrbitalPete]

Yeah; PS should open them in DAobe Camera Raw. one of the top sliders on the first tab is a white balance control. The camera picks one it thinks is 'rights' but you can adjust it.

RAW files are just what they sound like; any adjusments made to them are simply recorded in part of the file; in other words, you never lose the original image data (unless you delete the RAW). That means you can sit there and bugger about with white balance (or any other setting), and still revert to the original if you don't like your changes.

[lfc1892]

Thanks for the prompt replies guys. I was simply under the impression that when you shoot a raw file that no white balance is processed at all, and that all you see when you view the file in pshop is a 'digital negative', yet i took a shot in raw with custom white balance which was fine, and then intentionally took one with completely the wrong white balance setting, again in raw, and then viewed them in pshop. What i expected to see was too identical raw files, ie without the camera's white balance settings taken into account. What i saw was two totally different colour photos due to the white balance settings having been different when taken. If white balance is something that the camera's processor adjusts on board, and is something that is not meant to be adjusted for when shooting raw, then why the two different looking photos?

*nervously anticipates an incredibly simple explanation to make me look really blonde*

[OrbitalPete]

The white balance is merely a 'temperature' setting given by the camera. Any image at all will have a temperature, so there will always be one assigned to a picture. Rather than an arbitrary value, cameras are actually pretty good at getting white balance in the approximately correct region. This is good, because it means if you're shooting under - for example - sodium lights, the camera can automatically compensate, saving you a lot of time.

By applying white balances to RAW files it reduces the amount of tweaking necessary; if you take 200 photos, you may only have to tweak white balance on 20 of them, rahter than 200 of them.

That said, you are able to change the white balance of the RAW to whatever setting you like.

Unless you're working on a calibrated monitor you want to be a little bit careful about adjusting white balances from those set by cameras (providing your camera has the correct white balance set for the light conditions).

[lfc1892]

So contrary to what olympus' site says, the raw file saved by the camera is adjusted for white balance? Thats what i guessd but cant understand why olympus state otherwise. Thats what confused me.

How can i calibrate a laptop monitor? You raise a very valid point, my friend.

[OrbitalPete]

Yeah, by 'processed' I guess they mean that it's not fixed in the image as it is in, for example, JPG: you can still change it.

As far as calibration goes, the best free method is to go through the various pages here:

LCD monitor test images

If you find yourself ever wanting to print to paper, or send things off for getting done on canvas I would highly recommend getting a proper bit of kit such as a Spyder.

[lfc1892]

Found this article online, but not sure if it's worth all the effort if it's not really going to give a top result. It seems based on subjective assessment after all.

Monitor Color Calibration for free using your DSLR » Pictures and Code

[lfc1892]

Oh dear. I see what you meant now by getting the screen calibrated if having shots printed. I nipped into Jessops and had a print of a shot done from a Kodak booth and the difference between the print and the appearance on my laptop screen was staggering. The screen appearance was very clean and 'white' and yet the print had such a strong yellow cast to it. Unbelievable difference. Maybe it's a characteristic of Kodak booths, but I doubt it.

[OrbitalPete]

The big problem with printing on paper is that you're using two completely different colour systems to make your colours.

Displays such as monitors, TVs etc project light at your eyes, and use the RGB additive system; the classic primarry colours you were taught at school. The light is generated through these coloured filters. Printed media, on the other hand rely on reflections.

The reason that paints never behaved the right way at school is that inks, paints etc rely on a subtractive system, using cyan, magenta and yellow inks to remove red green and blue frequencies from the reflected light.

So RGB (Red, Green, Blue) and CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK)systems have vastly different ways of producing colour; as a result the gamut (range of colour) that can be generated by each method is different.

You add that to the issues around correctly calibrating your monitor and workflow colour system and you can very easily end up with bad prints.

[lfc1892]

Thanks for the advice, Pete. It's interesting reading for me as I loked in brief at some of this stuff at undergraduate level. CIE chromaticity diagrams and all that.

The difference was so marked that I have a feeling it may not just be calibration but more likely to do with colour management and colour space etc as I viewed the image at work on a Dell monitor and it seemed more similar to the prints. I'll have to look into how to set up the right colour space etc. to get it so that what I see on my screen is more like what gets printed and what was on the camera screen. I think that's what you guys mean by workflow etc???

[happhhitachi]

Didnt you see the label - 'Pandoras Box'

Books have been written on this, long complicated ones... Short answer, you cant do this by eye, you need specialist software and hardware. A web search on Colour Confidence will find one of the big suppliers of the kit.

I have a Huey Pro which is about £80 does a good job but dosent set contrast and brightness. Colourmunki sets contrast and brightness as well as doing the colour adjustment AND profiles printers but its around £300.

There are devices between these levels.

Hope it helps.