Why doesn’t Canon custom white balance carry over to Lightroom or Camera Raw?
Asked 11/15/2015
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I shot RAW on a Canon SL1 using a custom white balance set in-camera from a reference image. In Windows/File Explorer thumbnails the photos appear with the expected white balance, but when I import them into Lightroom or open them in Photoshop Camera Raw, the color changes and “As Shot” does not match the in-camera custom white balance.
Is this expected behavior? If Lightroom/Camera Raw don’t use Canon’s in-camera custom white balance, is there a way to apply the same result from the reference image, or do I need Canon software to preserve it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
2
Adobe Camera Raw (which is used for raw conversion by both Photoshop and lightroom) and most other raw converter applications created by third parties (those other than the manufacturer of a specific camera) ignore the in camera settings for things such as white balance, contrast, saturation, etc. at the time the photo was taken. Instead, each application applies what their designers considered to be a good default starting point for a particular camera.
Canon's in-house products such as Picture Style Editor and Digital Photo Professional read the in camera settings and apply them at the time you first open an image taken with an EOS camera. You are free to change them as you wish, but it is nice to have the settings selected when the picture was taken as the starting point. The in-house applications provided by other camera manufacturers are similar. They usually provide the option to open the raw file using the in camera settings at the time the photo was taken.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, this is normal. Lightroom and Photoshop Camera Raw use Adobe’s own raw conversion, and third-party raw converters often do not fully honor camera-maker settings such as custom white balance, contrast, saturation, or picture style. “As Shot” in Adobe software is Adobe’s interpretation of the raw metadata, not necessarily Canon’s exact in-camera rendering.
That’s also why File Explorer thumbnails can look different: they usually show the embedded JPEG preview made by the camera, which does include Canon’s in-camera settings.
If you want the closest match to the camera’s custom white balance and other Canon settings, use Canon software such as Digital Photo Professional. Canon’s own software reads and applies those EOS in-camera settings as a starting point.
In Lightroom/Camera Raw, you’ll typically need to set white balance manually, for example by using the eyedropper on the same neutral reference image you used in-camera, then syncing that WB to the rest of the shoot.
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