HELP!!! Welding glass shots in Lightroom... WB Issue!

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Clickawaymedia

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Before any of you say "buy a real big stopper" that isnt the issue here.

I took some landscapes using welding glass the other day using a custom WB taken with the glass on, and when I view them in googles Picasa (and in camera LCD) the WB looks fine, but when I look at them in LR2 they all still have a green colour cast which doesnt come out by setting a custom WB in software.

Now I'm pretty new to LR2 so dont really know what I'm doing with it too much... but I assume it something to do with the software settings?

Any tips would be appreciated!
 
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I'm not a lightroom user, but would be interested to see if its the same with photoshop. I'm still waiting for my glass to arrive so I haven't yet tested. But from what I can tell from the previous posts, using a custom white balance should work fine.
 
can you not use your live view to set a custom WB before youshoot?

when you convert from raw you should be able to set the WB - if its a jpeg use curves
 
mm_photographic said:
Just to add...

I did set a custom WB before I shot, and when viewing the shot in the camera or with Picasa the colours all look perfectly fine... it only appears to be an issue when I use Adobe LR2 or CS5... I only shoot in raw.
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Is it worth trying it CS3 or 4? seems odd to me.
 
Custom WB alone doesn't always work.

What colour profile are you using? are both Picasa and Lightroom using it?
 
i don't know about LR but when i opened my first welding glass shots up in UFraw i had the same problem. it was because UFraw was setting the WB to 'auto' by default. I just switched it to "camera WB" and all was good.
 
bomberman said:
i don't know about LR but when i opened my first welding glass shots up in UFraw i had the same problem. it was because UFraw was setting the WB to 'auto' by default. I just switched it to "camera WB" and all was good.
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I have tried using "As Shot" WB and it doesnt solve the problem... If I have it set to "Auto" it gets worse, but I'm confused...

How do I check/change my colour profiles in Picasa, LR2 (2.7) and CS5??

If I use Picasa on the raw... export as Jpeg and then edit in CS5 its ok. Its something to do with how Adobe products handle the collour profiles with Raw, but cant convert it... I'll try to post examples shortly.
 
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DSC07569.jpg


DSC07569_2.jpg
 
the top pic was exported form lightroom with no settings aplied except a resize to 800px,
the bottom green one was exported from cs5/lr2 and again, no settings applied, just a resize...

From what I can tell, cs5 and picasa are set to sRGB and lr2 uses prophotoRGB and cant be changed... is that right?

Not got an example from Sony Image Data Convertor 3 (camera software, but it looks pretty much identical to the top one (blue not green)

It is confusing me... PLEASE HELP!!
 
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Ok, my WG arrived today together with filter holder adaptors.

Using a Canon 400D took filtered photo and got the green cast as expected, set this as my custom white balance. Took a second filtered shot. Looks good on the camera LCD.

However, when opening the RAW file in Photoshop CS3 it still had the green cast even though the white balance slider was set to 'As Shot'.

Opened the RAW file in Digital Photo Professional (DPP Canon Software) and the image looks exactly the same as the image on the camera LCD screen as in it looks correct with the correct white balance.

Transferred from DPP into Photoshop CS3 and it retains the correct white balance.

Bearing in mind this was a quick test, as its dark and I only photographed a lit lamp shade. So its far from exhaustive but its a start. Looks like the workflow for this is to put it through DPP and then transfer to PS CS3
 
Yeah, thats the same problem I am having... but what I want to know is WHY?

I would love to be able to use lightroom on the files, but if there is no way of getting rid of the green cast it is impossible, and I will have to stick to Sony's Image Data Convertor... good job I dont take a lot of welding glass shots really!

If anyone does know a way to remove this cast please tell me!!
 
MM I've been googling it for a while.

Im guessing that your sony software is the same as the canon stuff in how it works. Basically, when you transfer a RAW file from the camera to the sony or canon software, it reads the settings you have used in the camera (Picture styles, white balance etc) and displays them accordingly.

Photoshop and lightroom are not made by canon or sony so they dont read or display the camera settings, they just import the RAW file. Thats the reason I have discovered. So your workflow should be to import the images into your sony software and then transfer them to lightroom or photoshop. I think it's the only way and it's the way I'll be doing them in the future.
 
I'd do as Paul has done and simply save the settings as a preset.
 
mm_photographic said:
I have tried using "As Shot" WB and it doesnt solve the problem... If I have it set to "Auto" it gets worse, but I'm confused...
Click to expand...

I have to disappoint you here - LR "As shot" WB will simply use the camera recorded WB coefficients but it won't result in the same image you see on your camera LCD screen (which is pre-rendered preview JPEG). I assume you shoot in RAW so the LR processing is quite different which results in different style image. You can try to use Adobe build in profiles to make it closer to Nikon look - in Develop module scroll down to the ACR calibrating settings (very last section of the right side panel), there is a drop down there that selects a profile - pick one of the Nikon ones and see if it makes any difference with the "As shot" WB.

LR Auto WB is hit or miss really - I would not advise to use it. It tries to guess the average tone of the whole frame and set WB accordingly. Unfortunately it does gets it wrong quite a lot of times to make it hit or miss...

However, the best solution is to really set WB yourself. Select the WB picker tool and click on your photo where there is a neutral area (you can try it on the even areas of the clouds) - this will set the WB so that area picked is neutral (roughly has equal proportions of R, G and B in it).
 
Just been playing round with my Welding Glass, the weather is still naff and I took this about 9pm. Not a very awe inspiring image but it done what I needed to do.

mani, you mentioned that when you used a custom white balance on your sony, and imported the image into LR/Photoshop, the white balance wasn't correct. I too experianced this, however. I think I have overcome this and it might be the same for you and your sony.

I set the camera to Custom White Balance, composed my shot with the gray card full in the frame under the lighting conditions I was using. Took the shot for the required length of time (160 seconds). then went into the menu function of my canon to set the Custom White Balance, selected the image just taken and then took the photograph again, for the required 160 seconds.

Transferred to my computer and opened up in photoshop. The white balance was correct without the need for going through canons DPP software.

image as shot, converted to jpg, resized to 800 px and noise removed with Noiseware pro (I was using ISO 3200) exif data intact on image.



No other post processing needed for the white balance. Not sure if the sony is the same, but it might be worth a try. If nothing else, it will reduce your workflow.
 
mousemat said:
No other post processing needed for the white balance. Not sure if the sony is the same, but it might be worth a try. If nothing else, it will reduce your workflow.
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It's not so much the camera as the glass (although the camera does play a part - some are more limited than others in the amount they can correct).

Optically speaking, welding glass doesn't have quite the quality control of filters designed for camera use, so while simple white balance fixes will work for some welding glasses, they don't work for all the different pieces of glass out there made by hundreds of companies around the world that end up on eBay.

For those where a preset WB actually works, I'd be interested to know from where they were purchased, and if on eBay, which seller. The piece I have won't work with a pre-set WB on the three different bodies I've tried it on, and requires some adjustments to the "camera calibration" tab on ACR as well as WB adjustments to get it looking just right.
 
John

you might want to have a look at this You Tube video tutoral on setting a custom white balance on the Nikon D300. I guess its the same as the D300s. Remember to shoot through the filter for the correct length of time as determined by your welding glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JBU1bbN2M

I would suspect the best way to go about this is to take a custom white balance image before every shot.

For what's it worth, the glass for my test shot above was from ebay seller DarkMutton and is a shade 10. Has the wording 10 XZ 1 ANSI Z87.1-1989 printed on it
 
mousemat said:
I would suspect the best way to go about this is to take a custom white balance image before every shot.
Click to expand...

Bit of a hassle on 10-20 minute exposures. ;)

Quicker to just use the presets in ACR.
 
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