WB setting with Sony, PS and WhiBal

[MarcRWF]

Hi,

I have a Sony DSC-F828. This camera creates RAW images.

Your video uses the PS CS Camera RAW plug-in White Balance Tool to pick the light gray card of the WhiBal to set WB.

Adobe has on their web site a quicktime movie that shows how to use their Camera RAW plug-in with PS CS. They explain that the White Balance Tool is to pick an "off-white 3/4 tone within the image and that the tool is not to pick 18% gray". This does not seem to follow the purpose of WhiBal.

Sony includes a RAW image converter that allows one to set the WB either by color temperature or an eyedropper tool for picking a gray point. This would seem to make use of WhiBal.

Can you explain all of these?

[MichaelT]

The 3/4 tone that Adobe mentions and the light gray WhiBal are the same. Adobe is referring to a 3/4 towards White, not towards Black. Either Gray of the WhiBal will work for RAW but the lighter gray will work a little better for RAW. Cutting hairs but a bit better. JPEG requires the darker Gray.

[MarcRWF]

Thanks for the explaination.

When I shot a reference image with WhiBal and used the White Balance Tool to set the temperature, all four colors, black, white, dark gray and light gray, resulted in the same temperature result (4200) and slightly different tint values.

Does this make sense?