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Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 10:17 pm
by brodie_geers
For an interior render is it best to use proper color temps for the lights and then white balance in post? Any particular methods for this sort of thing (in photoshop)? I'm used to exterior renderings where the white balance is already pretty good.

Would it be better to just change the lighting color temps to 6500k?

-Brodie

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:52 am
by Half Life
Well, my understanding is the camera is already locked at a white balanced for 6500K (daylight) so if you want a different white balance you'll have to set that in Photoshop... but am I correct in assuming you want to re-create the look of an interior scene shot on the wrong film for the yellowish look? If so there are a few good Photoshop plugins that will easily create those effects in post.

Best,
Jason.

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 5:34 am
by brodie_geers
Well, my understanding is that when you're inside your eyes adjust to, say, incandescent light so that it "looks" white even though it isn't. And similarly if I take a photo with my point and shoot camera, it automatically adjusts the white balance accordingly. But Maxwell doesn't do that so an interior render filled with incandescent lights looks pretty amber colored. I guess I'm wondering if most people will fix that in post or if they fake the light color to be white rather than it's true amber color.

So if I understand what you're saying then the answer is, no, I don't want a yellow look. I want it to have a proper white balance.

-brodie

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 5:32 pm
by Half Life
Yep -- you have to remember that Maxwell isn't mimicking our eyes it's mimicking a camera, and camera's (particularly film type) use different film for different lighting conditions. In the old day if you used outdoor film to shoot indoor lighting you would end up with that amber/yellowish color most times. For that matter if you used indoor film outside you would often end up with a strong blueish color cast.

It's worth mentioning that they make all different temperature indoor lighting so you are not really bending any rules to use a daylight lighting emitter (6500K)... I use daylight adjusted fluorescents in my studio for example.

Best,
Jason.

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 7:42 pm
by zdeno
as easy as taking a photo .... 30 years ago.

I struggled with WB as well, but photoshop can make a difference

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 9:02 pm
by Mihai
If you don't want any color cast it's easy, just set all your emitters to white. Easier than real world where photographers most times can't change the light sources in the room they are photographing to all be balanced with daylight :) If you want a little tonal variation you could always set the incandescent to be a little yellow, it can balance nicely with the bluer tone from the Physical Sky lighting.

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:58 am
by Richard
Half Life wrote:Well, my understanding is the camera is already locked at a white balanced for 6500K (daylight) so if you want a different white balance you'll have to set that in Photoshop... but am I correct in assuming you want to re-create the look of an interior scene shot on the wrong film for the yellowish look? If so there are a few good Photoshop plugins that will easily create those effects in post.

Best,
Jason.
Hey Jason - I know with Indigo you can actually select differing film types during rendering for some neat and varied effect, does this feature exist with MR - I found the option to select the film back size for varied cameras bu not film?

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:08 am
by Half Life
No, but that would be a really neat feature -- you certainly loose alot of character in digital with the loss of film (grain and color), but there are some nice Photoshop plug-ins that can simulate those effects in post.

I'm not sure too many of the younger generations even know what film looks like anymore though.

Best,
Jason.

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:13 am
by Richard
Half Life wrote:No, but that would be a really neat feature -- you certainly loose alot of character in digital with the loss of film (grain and color), but there are some nice Photoshop plug-ins that can simulate those effects in post.

I'm not sure too many of the younger generations even know what film looks like anymore though.

Best,
Jason.
Mate it is a very neat feature! Not sure you have played with it but the range of effects are quite varied.

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:22 am
by zdeno
Mihai wrote:.... just set all your emitters to white. ...
It would be brutal rape on correctness of GI I think .

I think 3500 K emitter + BW in postpro is not the same as

6500 K emitter without BW needed.

materials would bounce off completely different amount and color of light spectrum.

but I can be wrong as hell in it .

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:31 am
by Aji Enrico
White balance should be a mxi feature

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 12:02 pm
by Lars Magnusson
I prefer to think of Maxwell as a Digital SLR when shooting RAW ( sensor data, instead of jpg ).
It's only when the digital camera is set to produce jpg's that whitebalance is done and usually some over the top noise reduction that looks like you abused some photoshop filters. ( gets even worse when using cheaper compact cameras and cellphone cameras)

RAW files requires the same manual whitebalancing that the Maxwell result (when using realistic colortemperatures on indoor renders ).
I use the CameraRaw program that's included with PhotoshopCS4, since it doesn't actually modify the original photo. (must be opened and saved in photoshop)
And after I read "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby" I only shoot RAW and use Photoshop, Bridge and CameraRaw to fix my photos. :mrgreen:

And I agree with Aji, it would be nice with a white balance for the MXI, maybe something similar to the greypoint picker inside CameraRaw that is very simple to use. It's much more difficult to use for example "curves" to do whitebalancing. :mrgreen:

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 4:13 pm
by brodie_geers
Lars Magnusson wrote:I prefer to think of Maxwell as a Digital SLR when shooting RAW ( sensor data, instead of jpg ).
It's only when the digital camera is set to produce jpg's that whitebalance is done and usually some over the top noise reduction that looks like you abused some photoshop filters. ( gets even worse when using cheaper compact cameras and cellphone cameras)

RAW files requires the same manual whitebalancing that the Maxwell result (when using realistic colortemperatures on indoor renders ).
I use the CameraRaw program that's included with PhotoshopCS4, since it doesn't actually modify the original photo. (must be opened and saved in photoshop)
And after I read "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby" I only shoot RAW and use Photoshop, Bridge and CameraRaw to fix my photos. :mrgreen:

And I agree with Aji, it would be nice with a white balance for the MXI, maybe something similar to the greypoint picker inside CameraRaw that is very simple to use. It's much more difficult to use for example "curves" to do whitebalancing. :mrgreen:
Yes, I've never used RAW but I was under the impression that it was, indeed similar. Maybe what would be nice would be to have the option to export a .raw (I guess that's the format?) file from Maxwell Render? That way you'd have the tools available in PS, just as if you were *gasp* taking a photo! What do you think about that, having used RAW? Should I throw that into the wishlists?

-Brodie

Re: Interior Render White Balance

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 8:59 pm
by Lars Magnusson
brodie_geers wrote: Yes, I've never used RAW but I was under the impression that it was, indeed similar. Maybe what would be nice would be to have the option to export a .raw (I guess that's the format?) file from Maxwell Render? That way you'd have the tools available in PS, just as if you were *gasp* taking a photo! What do you think about that, having used RAW? Should I throw that into the wishlists?

-Brodie
Hi Brodie,
Unfortunately RAW is just the term for "RAW sensordata", and canon for example has the end ".cr2", nikon has another.
To complicate everything, most sensors have different rgb pattern, the raw format is different even between cameras from the same manufacturer.
My Canon450D raw files (.cr2) could be opened by the AdobeBridge and CameraRaw that came with Photoshop CS3, but I had to upgrade to PS CS4 to open my Canon5DMkII raw files (also .cr2) :(
So the software (like adobe bridge's cameraraw) decodes the sensor rgb pattern and translates it to an image.

Technically, I think that MaxwellRender have the fileformats needed. Photoshop CS4 can open the 32bit tiff, hdr and exr, but I have to convert to 16bit if I want do manual curves-whitebalancing.

And 16bit tif can be directly opened by bridge's cameraraw for the simple whitebalance "greypoint" sampler
(I'm not sure but I think that CameraRaw5.7 is an integrated part of the AdobeBridge....? I cant find a way to start it outside bridge)

Now..does anyone here use PhotoshopCS5 ? Is it able to do more with 32bit images than CS4? (like curves?)


Note:
Primary reason I love Bridge+CameraRaw is that if I have adjusted 1 photo(or render), whitebalance, vibrance, devignetting, defringe etc, and have 50 photos taken in the same light, I can select them all and synchronize the adjustments to the rest of the pics. Then batch convert them all into for example jpg's. Something I learned from the book I mentioned...before that I was annoyed that the Photoshop installation included Bridge, I thought it was only a browser :oops: