That Automatic WB Correction is pretty damned good!

[greenmorpher]

I've just been taking some pictures of a white flower with my Panasonic G1 and the 45-200mm lens. I was working in direct but lowish sunlight in the morning, maybe an hour and a half to two hours after sun-up, and it is mid-autumn here, so there might have been a little warmth in the light still, and I had adjusted the White Balance for sunlight in the camera to give a little more warmth. The WB in the Panny is a little problematical -- it tends to cold with a touch of yellow!!!

In addition, I was worried (too much, as it turned out) about the white blowing out so I spot-metered on the light yellow center of the flowers. They were under-exposed as a result. I should have over-exposed on the spot-metering.

I have the camera set to fine JPEG.

Anyway, the long and short of it is the result you see in the picture. I opened the file in PL15 which is set as the external editor for iPhoto, went Filter > Automatic > White Point Correction, applied it and got white and brighter. hew white was right -- I felt the bright was nearly there but not quite. So I then went to Tools > Histogram Correction and moved the high side (right) thing to the left a little, the middle thing moved left as well, brightening the picture a bit more. You can see the finished result.

I'm really impressed with the auto WB correction, though, it did nearly all the brightening as well as the whiting!

A nomenclature matter: it should be called "White Balance" not "White Point" simply because that is the industry and consumer term. I have two cameras, the Panny and a Kodak P880, and both have a "WB" button and menu; bot have manuals that refer to the White Balance. In the forums, the white point is always referred to as the White Balance or WB. Technically, it is probably wrong but that is the usage. Why make life hard?

Kind regards

Geoffrey Heard
Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Worsley Press