DPP: Copy Auto White Balance?

[shaggie76]

Is there a way to copy (ie: register) the Auto White Balance setting from a shot? I sometimes wish I could apply the same White Balance to a series of shots to eliminate slight inconsistencies in what the camera detected automatically. AWB often looks fine until you put two shots side to side and the skin-tone looks slightly wrong

I can do this with a gray card and the eye-dropper but I don't always have time to get a sample. I often resort to fudging it with manual Color Temperature but it usually isn't as good as AWB better because I can't tune the right mix of +Green etc as well as the camera can.

I've looked at the file information in DPP and I don't see anywhere I can sniff out the raw values

-g

[Waddizzle]

DPP has the “Recipe” feature.  You can copy the settings from one photo, and apply it to others.  Look for it in the Edit menu.

[dpp4user]

Does this copy the result of the auto white balance or just the setting that 'auto white balance' should be applied (apart from AWB corrections)?

I'm afraid only the setting that 'auto white balance' should be applied will be copied, not the actual result of the AWB.

[Waddizzle]

If you want to copy a specific WB setting, then do that.  That is not how Auto WB works.

WB has a number of settings: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Custom, etc.  If expect Auto WB to apply the same setting to every shot, then you do not understand what that setting does.  It can come up with a slightly different setting for every photo, depending upon the content of the image.

[shaggie76]

I did a quick test where I took two shots of the same object: one with 4500K studio lights, one with cooler LED household bulbs, both with AWB, both with a generous amount of gray card in the scene.

I loaded them both up in RAW in DPP: If I was able to copy the AWB values from one to the other it should see an obvious shift in the colors. Nothing I tried made any change at all.

Things I tried that did nothing:

1) Copy Recipe + Paste Recipe

2) Select Audo, Register as Dest 1, Apply 1

From what I can tell in both cases these merely set the White Balance Adjustment drop-down to "auto" which isn't helpful (I already that option!). What I want to apply is the values it detected automatically(eg 4500K +5G).

I'd be just as happy if I could see these values anywhere in the Ctrl-I info (like I can on my light meter) because I assume I could enter them manually as temp+fine-tuning and register it.

[Waddizzle]

---

@shaggie76 wrote:

I did a quick test where I took two shots of the same object: one with 4500K studio lights, one with cooler LED household bulbs, both with AWB, both with a generous amount of gray card in the scene.

I loaded them both up in RAW in DPP: If I was able to copy the AWB values from one to the other it should see an obvious shift in the colors. Nothing I tried made any change at all.

Things I tried that did nothing:

1) Copy Recipe + Paste Recipe

2) Select Audo, Register as Dest 1, Apply 1

From what I can tell in both cases these merely set the White Balance Adjustment drop-down to "auto" which isn't helpful (I already that option!). What I want to apply is the values it detected automatically(eg 4500K +5G).

I'd be just as happy if I could see these values anywhere in the Ctrl-I info (like I can on my light meter) because I assume I could enter them manually as temp+fine-tuning and register it.

---

Isn’t that exactly what I told you would happen?  It will automatically assign a unique color temperature for each image, depending upon its’ content.  If you want to copy a specific temperature, then ...  You have to dial in a color temperature manually.  

I do not understand why DPP hides the Color Temperature, but it does.  Also, i just noticed that if I take a shot with WB Auto, and dial in a color temperature, the Info Window will still show me the metadata associated with the RAW file.  

In other words, it will still say WB = Auto despite the fact that I dialed in a temperature myself.  I suppose that might be the correct behavior?  It is definitely unexpected behavor.  That is a little head scratcher right there.

[shaggie76]

There's no reason to get upset -- your first reply seemed to suggest there was hope so I tried it carefully.

Here's a made-up example why this feature would be useful:

Shot 1, AWB selects 4600K +1 Green

Shot 2, the subject moves and there's more colored wallpaper in the background that throws the AWB off -- the incident light on the subject hasn't changed but the camera only has reflected light to work with and it makes the AWB select 4700K +2 Green

Both shots will probably look okay but side by side the skin-tone will be slightly different and distracting. 

In theory I could fiddle with the manual color temp slider and maybe I'd get close but chances are I wouldn't do as good a job as the camera did.

My hope is either there's a trick to copy the 4600K +1G to Shot 2 or there's a way to see the temperature and bias values that AWB detected.

Hopefuly there's a DPP developer reading this forum who might considering making this a feature.

[Waddizzle]

I was not upset. I got confused by the remark from the gallery.

[Waddizzle]

“My hope is either there's a trick to copy the 4600K +1G to Shot 2 or there's a way to see the temperature and bias values that AWB detected.”


Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw show it to you.