Andy Rouse

[gary gas]

Andy Rouse said on another forum that if you shoot raw your better off leaving your white balance on auto which i found interesting.Does anyone on here do that.

[Rob Chace]

I do,
You can always change the white balance later if you wish when converting the RAW. The camera usually does quite a good job anyway.
Regards Rob.

[Kev Lewis]

Yup, mine is on Auto. I correct it, and the exposure, in Capture One Pro during the raw conversion to Tiff

[Jon]

Yes I always leave mine on auto, he also recommends you turn the sharpening off, i.e. completely. A pro Photoshop user pal of mine said it doesn't really make any difference in practice.
I think AR really advocates no sharpening just in case enormous prints are going to be made, i.e. in which case interpolation is required.
I did adjust one of my parameters to make no sharpening at all, I have switched back to parameter 1, guess what - can't see a ha'pth of difference! But of course I haven't had too many folk asking me if they can have one of my files for a 30 foot poster. If, no when they do, I will ask them if they want sharpened or unsharpened. Jon

[gary gas]

how do you judge what is a ok white balance do you just go by the way it looks.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by gary gas

how do you judge what is a ok white balance do you just go by the way it looks.

I don't judge, I just let the camera. When I convert using Bridge/Adobe RAW or Rawshooter I sometimes play around but more often than not I prefer the camera setting. Jon

[eeyore]

If the rouse meister says it you can pretty much take it as gospel - for jpeggers he also has wise words on WB - leave it in shade all the time , unless you are shooting under artificial light - this will warm up your shots in a way similar to a 81B filter.

and if you ever get a chance to do one of his courses grab it with both hands , worth its weight in memory cards

Just dont ask him for feedback on your portfolio unless you are prepared for some rugged and uncompromising words of wisdom - he originally described mine as "so cute you should just go the whole way and hire a puppy to peak out of a basket" - He was right tho and my portfolio is inestimably stronger as a result of taking his advice

[Kev Lewis]

To set an accurate white balance look at an area of the image that should be neutral ie a white grey or black. Depending on what software you use there will be something that allows you to see what the Red/Green/Blue values are in that area. Adjust the colour temperature to set the R,G and B values to the same, this sets the white balancee. Having said that I prefer my images to be slightly on the warm side so I leave the red slightly higher

You can use the same technique to set the exposure on the image. Look at the brightest region in the image and adjust the exposure until the RGB values are around 245 out of a maximum of 255. Anything higher will just appear blown

[Jon]

I reckon this all links back to checking the histogram, the message is simple really, i.e. don't over expose your shots. As a routine I tend to underexpose by 1/3 stop unless the subject is of an average luminosity. Jon

[Kev Lewis]

Originally Posted by Jon

I reckon this all links back to checking the histogram, the message is simple really, i.e. don't over expose your shots. As a routine I tend to underexpose by 1/3 stop unless the subject is of an average luminosity. Jon

To avoid noise and maximise the detail you should always expose to the right. ie on the histogram push the values as far to the right as possible WITHOUT blowing the whites. Unexposing will only raise the noise in the image when you correct the exposure in software.