Evolution of a Photograph—Part 2: Setting White Balance and White & Black Points

I believe that getting the white balance to reflect the color tone in the image that you want and setting a good white and black point (assuming the image has either or both) are the two most critical steps in post processing of a photo.

As you look at the tabs in Lightroom, they are the same as Camera RAW, except that Lightroom has a separate tab for Vignette whereas Camera RAW includes the vignette functions under the camera calibration tab.

I start by setting my white balance. Why? Because as you change the white balance, the white/mid-range/black points will shift somewhat. How do I select the white balance I want? Well, I usually look at the subject or a dominate aspect of the photo and move the Temp and Tint sliders until I think the color tone is correct. In this image, I used the sky to set my color tone.

In Vincent Versace’s Welcome to Oz, he prescribes at setting the white point to where the first pixel becomes white and the black point to where you start to “see meaningful black” or an area in which we actually see something that is important. How do you do that in Lightroom or Camera RAW? If you hold the ALT key while moving the exposure slider, any pixel that is not white at that exposure will turn black; then, as you move the slider to the right or left more or less pixels will become white. The black slider works the same (except the background turns white).

Although the histogram shows that I have clipped some shadows by using a black setting of 8, if you look at the screen shot of what is actually clipped (using the above described method), you can see that what was clipped is details that are not really needed—maingly shadows in the back bumper and in the wheel well. I could have pushed the slighter even further without losing any details that were essential to the photo.

Yesterday, I got a few questions about cropping that I answered on the blog. However, I got a question regarding a slight color shift between the two photos presented. Yes, I also noticed it. I think it has to do with how the photos were converted to JPEGs. The uncropped RAW photo was exported from Lightroom as JPEG to my blog folder while the cropped photo was saved from Photoshop as a JPEG to my blog folder. It goes to show you how different JPEGs can look.

Enjoy and don't forget to ask any questions you might have along the way. I will do my best to revise my next posting or answer the question in the current post to answer the question or comment.

Post Processing in Lightroom—Set white balance and white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, vibrance and clarity.