Digital BW, The Print

My concern was whether the white balance adjustment in the camera 
mattered if one was shooting in raw mode and planned to convert to 
B&W.  From the thread to date I gather that there is agreement that 
the camera white balance settings are irrelevant, but that there is 
some disagreement about the importance of getting the white balance 
right when you do the raw conversion in PS.

Thanks for all of the help.

Steve


> You're talking about white balance adjustments in Photoshop.  That 
wasn't
> what the original poster asked about (at least I don't think it 
was).  He
> asked whether he could leave the white balance setting on "auto"  
so I think
> he was asking whether the particular white balance setting in the 
camera
> (i.e. auto, daylight, flash, fluorescent, etc.) mattered when 
shooting in
> RAW mode.  It doesn't matter when in RAW mode with the digital 
cameras I've
> owned because the raw data isn't affected by the white balance 
setting (i.e.
> that setting as well as various other camera controls in effect 
become
> inoperative when in RAW mode).
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Pieris Berreitter" <pieris@y...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 1:24 AM
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] White balance and B&W
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I was experimenting with this a few days ago.
> 
> Absolutely white balance at the RAW stage is important. It can, in
> fact, become critical if you are concerned about highlight detail
> that is near clipping. In Photoshop's CS RAW import, adjusting color
> balance has the effect of repositioning the R, G, and B channels in
> the histogram. In an example here, highlights in my image clip at
> 5500K but are smooth at 2500K.
> 
> What might be good is if the RAW importer would apply contrast 
FIRST,
> and then WB. That way you could decrease contrast (shrink the
> histogram) and then adjust WB (which can grow the histogram), 
without
> clipping. But it doesn't work like that, so you have to be very
> careful. The other pie in the sky solution would be a RAW to true 
16-
> bit-space converter. Photoshop CS does not do this; instead, 16-bit
> space is really 10-, 12-, or 14-bit space depending on camera.
> 
> The only solution I know of is to watch the histogram carefully as
> you drag your white balance slider around.
> 
> These are 100% crops taken from a Canon P&S digicam. All RAW sliders
> were set to zero (contrast, exposure, etc). I tried Bibble and
> BreezeBrowser as well on these files, but both of these retained
> highlights at the expense of clipping the shadows. I do not have
> capture one. The images are in color and clearly show that
> information is lost in the highlights which could not be regained.
> 
> http://www.pmb.net/a/psraw_2500.jpg
> http://www.pmb.net/a/psraw_5500.jpg
> 
> -Pieris
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Roger Howard
> <rogerhoward@m...> wrote:
> >
> > On Nov 7, 2004, at 8:50 PM, Paul D. DeRocco wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >> From: Stephen Kobrin [mailto:kobrins@w...]
> > >>
> > >> If I am ultimately going to convert a digital image (saved in 
Raw
> > >> Mode) to B&W is there any point in worrying about getting the
> white
> > >> balance exactly right or does it suffice to leave it on
> automatic?
> > >
> > > Color to B&W conversion usually involves major transformations,
> not
> > > just
> > > blindly converting to grayscale. For instance, the Channel Mixer
> lets
> > > you do
> > > things like set the red to 150% and the blue to -50%, to make
> really
> > > dark
> > > skies. If you're like me, you'll probably yank the curves all
> over the
> > > place, too. By then, you'll have swamped any minor differences 
in
> the
> > > color
> > > levels you get from using different white balances.
> >
> > Agreed - but just to be literal, white balance settings *do* 
affect
> B&W
> > conversion; whether they are a major factor just depends on how
> you're
> > doing the conversion. Yeah, I usually use extreme moves in Channel
> > Mixer, often with an additional Curves adjustment layer beneath 
it.
> But
> > the right WB setting to preserve the right channel separation
> (before
> > you mix them back down) is important, in my experience.
> >
> > -R
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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