Friday, April 29, 2011

Lightroom How-to: Batch Color Balance Using Munsell Color Checker

One of the great things about Adobe Lightroom is the ability to batch color balance photos. We include a Munsell (Macbeth) Color Checker in every shot. Here's how I color balance using the eyedropper tool.

 Open a representative image

Our photographers shoot hundreds of pictures in a day. The camera settings and lighting is always the same which makes color balancing batches of images easy. The color checker is always in the same location.

Zoom in to 100% magnification (press the 1:1 over the navigation)

Select the eyedropper tool

Position the eyedropper and click

You'll want to find a neutral tone. For some reason I find the second lightest square to work best for me. Make sure you are only selecting the grey area. And click. That's it! It's color balanced.

Return the color picker

I kind of wish that once you make a selection by clicking that the eyedropper tool would return to it's original place. It doesn't. Make sure to put it back. If you don't navigation can get a little confusing.

To batch process, select all the pictures (CTRL A) and use the SYNC command.

Select-all thumbnails (they'll be highlighted when selected)

Sync brings up the synchronize menu - I sync all the global adjustments

Confirm

Once the adjustments are synchronized, you'll see the little +/- symbol in the corner of the thumbnails. This means the picture was edited.

Double check

It's a good idea to double check some of the images - just to make sure they look okay.

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