Comments on: WhiBal vs. Digital Grey Kard

By: Archie Courtney-Wildman

Archie Courtney-Wildman — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:04:03 +0000

Way back when I took the plunge into digital (bye ‘bye Leica) I purchased the WhiBal and I carry it with me in my sack but it gets used very rarely as I was never able to balance my colours to my satsifaction.
This morning I tried balancing some old photo’s of an oil painting that I took prior to my reparing many holes, cracks and fading. For this I used a Photoshop system from PhotoshopEssentials that sought out the BWG (this stands for Black, White and Gray – not British Wire Gauge.
The gray is the standard 50% as offered by Photoshop.
This I found more than acceptable and I repeated the whole operation using WhiBal (single large card and support) but after using the black & white from the card I stayed with my 50% gray – this was also very acceptable.
My question. What is the percentage gray of the WhiBal ? I seem to remember a percentage of 18% but I am not certain.
Can anyone help before I redo the operation finishing with the WhiBal gray?

Thanks for any help

Archie

By: Michael miller

Michael miller — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:14:49 +0000

Where is the review?

I have the WhiBal in the next size up and it works well.

MDM

By: Mildy

Mildy — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 01:56:16 +0000

To my eyes the color was close with just the slightest hint of a blue tint. It was not enough to make a difference in my opinion and is well within the personal taste tolerance.
Next I corrected the same image using the DGK. After white balancing the RGB values read from the card ranged from 57.0 to to 59.8 with the biggest variance between RGB values being 0.2, the same tolerance as the WHIBAL card. This is the result.

By: James

James — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:27:06 +0000

I’ve been using WhiBal card and I was happy with result. But now, reading this discussion, I will try Digital Grey Kard as well.

By: Mincel

Mincel — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:45:41 +0000

Hi Andy,

It is the texture of the WhiBal, it is a compressed foam-like material. Different areas of the card gives different results.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:11:47 +0000

If you enlarge the first picture, the Whibal card looks more noisy/textured than the Digital Grey Kard, which looks smooth and uniform. Is it an effect of the photograph, or is there a difference in surface texture? How does that affect grey reading in the image?

By: R. Cristi

R. Cristi — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:13:30 +0000

I would have the Digital Grey Card. It works better for me, and a couple of my friends seem to like it also. Thanks for posting this Mincel.

R. Cristi
Author of Blonde Joke book!

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:21:01 +0000

I agree with Ryzon’s sentiments. I was trying to understand why their is so much variation in the corrected immages that use grey cards as a WB reference. These WhiBal turtorials really helped me understand the difference between WhiBal and other grey cards. Sure they are put together by the maker of WhiBal but definately worth viewing. Measuring the nuetrality of the cards is the key point of difference, I think.

http://www.whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/WhiBal/01/index.html

EpiDisc is another WB tool. I found useful another article on it’s use in comparison to WhiBal and other grey card tools.

http://www.camerahobby.com/Digital_WhiteBalance.htm

Enjoyed your article Mincel, especially appreciate the image examples of the two WB tools you used.

Cheers,
Paul

By: Ryzon

Ryzon — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:42:56 +0000

For those who say the WhiBal images are “too cool” or that you “like the warm tones”, I think you are missing the basic point of using a white balance card in the first place, which is to remove ALL light generated color cast from the image and obtain an image that is true to the color of the objects being photographed. You can only do this by using an absolutely neutral reference, which is what the WhiBal provides. Once you have the color cast removed, then you can tweak the image to be warmer if desired. The fact that the Digital Grey Kard produces warmer tones compared to the certified neutral WhiBal card indicates the Digital Grey Kard is not neutral (i.e., there is color cast still left in the image). Considering the cost of even mediocre camera equipment, the price difference between the two products is really irrelevant. I would much rather put my money on a known certified neutral reference than save a few pennies on something that gives me “warm tones” and therefore doesn’t perform its basic function as well.

By: Mike B

Mike B — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:04:36 +0000

Pop,

Speaking of intelligence, ‘your’ is possessive, ‘you’re’ is a contraction for ‘you are’. If you attack people, you’re advised to learn the difference since people will validly question your lack of intelligence. You also apparently cannot comprehend basic subject verb agreement i.e. ‘don’t costs less’.