White Balance Sheet

Dave,

Since I sounded out so loud about how good the BEHR chip cards were I thought I would stop in my local Home Depot today and pick up a few extras. My supply from about a year ago was getting low. I also wanted to measure how consistent the current chips were with my older ones.

Surpise! Behr has changed their chips and color names and they no longer have--at Home Depot--the color chip I reccomended. The best one they have now is the 790E: Subtle Touch, Gentle Rain, Porpoise. It is not as good as the old chip which had three very neutral patches at white-gray-black. The new cards are all shades of light to medium gray with a bit stronger tints.

On the 790e card all the tints are <1 on the L ab color scales. Good enough for most purposes but not quite as good neutral as the old chips. Sigh, what is a color geek supposed to do?

I may stop in the local Benjamin Moore shop tomorrow and see what they have to offer...Pratt & Lambert....Sherwin Williams....Glidden...so many possibilities.

Really though I usually find myself setting white points from the collar of somebodies t-shirt, a white sock, a piece of paper somewhere in the scene, a white painted wall. These commonly used white references all have a pretty big degree of variablity. A change in detergents will shift the color of my white cotton t-shirts by five points. Much bigger shifts than my cheapo WB paint chips. You would be amazed at the range of colors that I find in scenes with snow. All over the spectrum

For studio and catalog work a good set of color references is quite valuable and well worth the cost. I shoot in the field and don't really see the benifits of such precise measurements. Once I get within about 200K I am adjusting based on subjective view of my monitor.