Let's talk white balance!

Years ago I thought I was able to figure out a shots color color correction in post. For the most part that's true-if I spend enough time working on a photo I can, particularly if I look at it next to another image with proper skintones. I know the approximate color temp. of my strobes (and hotlights if I'm using those).

I'll tell you what... that's a very inefficient way of working, and one that I no longer use. Instead I picked up a product that came highly recommended called WhiBal. The one I ordered is credit card sized and I keep it in a pouch in my camera bag. Once my subject is positioned and the studio lights are set, I take one shot with the calibrated gray card in the frame. Then in Photoshop RAW Converter I click the card with the white balance eyedropper and color in the photo pretty much snaps into place. The next step is to select all the images used with the same lighting setup and use the "Develop Settings > Previous Conversion" operation. It will quickly adjust the color temperature and tint to the color corrected image settings.

The reason I believe this product is superior to others on the market is simple. They use a SpectroEye Spectrophotometer on each card before shipping to measure the cards to be spectrally neutral. You can visit their site and watch the infomercials (which are surprisingly interesting), or you can just take my advice, spend 25 bucks and get your own.

One thing I'd like to add is that proper color balanced skintones are not necessary the most flattering tones. But once you know your image is white balanced it makes it much easier to do subtle color tweaks to make your image perfect!

Recent stock photography

I've been spending more time shooting work for stock since I've noticed an increase in sales in the last two months or so.



Close up of a Microphone on iStock
For this shot I put the microphone on a daylight balanced lightbox and additionally lit it from above with a softbox. To get the bottom light to be effective it has to be balanced with the light from above. Since my aperture is already predetermined (f/13) as is the ISO (100) light balance is accomplished with the shutter speed. In this case 1/30 second worked perfectly in achieving a pure white background without blowing out highlights on the edges of the mic. I used my 70-200mm 4.0L along with an extension tube in order to really get up close and personal with the microphone.



Rad boombox on iStockphoto
This shot was also shot on my lightbox. In order to keep the highlights from blowing out on the chrome knobs I keep the dynamic range of the image in check and cut the product out from the background in post-production using the pen tool. Since the boombox doesn't have an overly-complex shape it was fairly quick and easy.




Wisconsin State Capitol Building in winter on iStock
I've wanted to get some photos of the capitol in the winter after a fresh snow. I went to my favorite vantage point and shot this at 200mm. The sky is quite gray so I'll have to go back and reshoot this sometime when there's a nice deep blue sky.