I teach a portrait lighting class on using available light and also cover the same sorts of topics in my online course Portrait Fundamentals.
One thing that often comes up as a question in the classroom and in the survey of folks doing the online course is about using a gray card. Some of the things that get asked, and that will be covered in this article include:
- What size gray card is best?
- How to use a gray card for custom White Balance in camera
- How to use a gray card for metering
- Using a gray card for color correction in post-production
What size gray card is best?
With a multitude of different sizes available, which one should you buy? My answer would be – it depends.
If you want to use it to do custom white balance in-camera then I’d suggest a slightly larger one because you have to photograph it and crop out everything else. That’s very hard to do with the business card sized ones.
If you only plan on using it to meter off of, or use for color correction on post-production later then you can get away with a smaller one that will fit in your pocket or camera bag nicely.
This one (left), or something similar, is a great option. It’s large enough to photograph, has a target on it so you can focus the lens, and folds down small for ease of portability.
Here are a few other options:
How to use a gray card for custom White Balance in camera
Another part of that question is why to use a gray card for white balancing in camera. My answer is two fold.
First I almost never do custom white balance in camera. It’s a pain to do, slows the photo session down, and if the light changes you have to do it over again anyway.
Second if you’re dealing with a mixed lighting situation – such as daylight from a window and overhead fluorescent lights – then doing a custom white balance in camera is a good solution to handle that and get a neutral color to your images. As I mentioned above though – keep in mind if you move away from the window, or the overhead lights get turned off – then you’ll have to do it again as the color will shift.
Having said that – if you want to give it a go here are the steps. They are slightly different of Canon and Nikon (if you use something else like Fuji, Pentax, Olympus, etc., check your manual for how to do this procedure).
For Canon users:
- Take a photo of the gray card – you need to make sure there is NOTHING else in the shot. You should see nothing but the card. If you have one without a target on it, your camera will not be able to focus on it, so switch to manual focus and take the shot. It’s okay if it is not sharp – that doesn’t matter. You should have something that looks like this. If you see anything other than gray – get closer!
- Navigate through your menu until you find where it says “Custom White Balance” or something similar. It will then ask you to choose an image, do that in the next step.
- Select the image of the gray card you just took. It may ask you “Use WB data from this image for custom WB” – select OK.
- Set your camera’s White Balance setting to Custom. It’s the funny looking symbol that looks like a square and two triangles (see below).
For Nikon users:
- Inside your camera’s menu find White Balance on the shooting menu options.
- Scroll down until you see PRE setting (below) and highlight that. It stands for Preset and is Nikon’s terminology for custom white balance.
- Hold down your WB (white balance) button for a few seconds until your LED display is flashing. Alternately if your model doesn’t do that, find the PRE setting in your menu and press your toggle to the right, choose “Measure” and set for Okay.
- Take a photo of the gray card (follow the directions for that above).
- You’re done, it should now be set.
That’s the short version of how to do it. If your camera doesn’t have those settings refer to your manual or do a quick YouTube search for the words “custom white balance” plus the name and model number of your camera. There is probably a video showing how to do it with your camera step by step. There are so many variations and cameras I can’t show them all here unfortunately.
How to use a gray card for metering
Your camera has a built-in meter that reads the amount of light and sets the exposure (or gives you information so you can do it if you’re shooting in manual mode). But sometimes it gets it wrong such as when you’re shooting a white subject, or a really dark one. That is because your camera is measuring and setting to make everything medium or 18% gray. Read more about how metering works in your camera here: Why is the snow gray in my winter photos?
You can use a gray card to help you set the exposure in such situations.
It is ideal to use this technique for portraits using natural light when the lighting remains constant, and circumstances where you have the time to setup your shot, use a tripod, and do a custom white balance as outlined above. It is not the time to use a gray card for metering when you have a moving subject or the light is changing rapidly.
Notice in the photo above the model is holding the gray card in front of her. Get your subject to help you by doing this, or prop it up in your shot somehow. Make sure the gray card is facing the camera straight on, as sometimes the slightest tilt or turn to one side can change how much light is bouncing off of it, and that will affect your exposure reading.
Follow these steps to take your meter reading:
- Set your camera to manual shooting mode. Select the ISO and aperture you wish to use for your shot.
- Set your camera’s metering mode to Spot Metering. This will allow the camera to read a very small area only, helpful if you only have a small gray card. You only want it to read the light off the reflector only, not the entire scene.
- Set your focus point to single and choose the center one. Your camera will meter the same place it focuses.
- Aim your camera at the gray card and press the shutter button part way down to take a reading. Looking in your viewfinder (eye piece) adjust the shutter speed until it gives you a reading of “0” (zero).
- Take a test shot of the model (or subject) and the gray card similar to the one above. (You’ll be able to use this in part four below also.)
- Review the histogram – you should have a perfect exposure with the gray card and all tones falling in the correct zones. If you shot only the gray card you should see one like below.
Using a gray card for color correction in post-production
Notice how large my gray card is in the photo above. It is actually the back side of the cover for my large 42″ reflector. The Promaster brand has that, others might too. Look for that a as bonus when you’re shopping for reflectors – kill two birds with one stone (I’d never kill a bird, just for the record).
If you followed the steps above and included a shot of your gray card and your subject you can do a custom white balance in post-production. Both Lightroom and Photoshop (and likely others, I’m just not familiar with them) have an eyedropper tool you can use to do just this.
- Open your image in Lightroom, Photoshop, Elements or whatever raw processor you use. This demonstration uses Lightoom so the screens and tools might look a little different if you use something else, the the process should be similar.
- Go to the Basic editing panel, in Lightroom that’s the Develop module, first panel, top right.
- Find, and click on, the White Balance Selector Tool. It’s the eyedropper you see circled below.
- Place it over an area of your gray card in the image, as shown below.
- Watch the thumbnail of the image (top left) as you move the eyedropper around on the gray card. When it looks like a good color to you, click there. Lightroom will neutralize any color in the spot you cocked making it perfect gray.
- Tweak your Temp and Tint sliders a bit to your tastes.
- Now you can use copy and paste, or Sync to copy the color settings of this one image over to all the others shot using the same lighting setup.
So that’s it. Using a gray card can be handy if you have the time to setup and do a few extra settings. If you have one in your bag, or on the back of your reflector try some of these tips out and let me know how it goes.
Do you have any other techniques for using a gray card? Please share in the comments below.
Cheers,
Hi, I have a D810 Nikon; I used a white paper for white balancing. I set the camera white balance to auto mode; take is picture on the white paper. The taken white paper picture appears like a grey rather than white color. from the camera, I select the white balance mode & select this picture grey picture as pre-set image. I took another picture on the white paper again; I still seeing the same grey color. Should I be seeing white now after the white balance has been pre-set? Please advise. Jason
@disqus_bEf7d0PSH1:disqus I think you are confusing two different issues. White balance is to correct color tint – not exposure. So you will see any color tints disappear if you use custom white balance – BUT only if you are shooting in the same lighting conditions where you took your test shot. AND you also need to change the camera’s white balance setting from AWB to CUSTOM. That could be one issue.
The other is why is your white paper grey. That has to do with exposure not color. This will help you with that issue: https://dev-dpm-2.instawp.xyz/snow-grey-winter-photos/
Many thanks for the advise; message noted. When taking picture indoor and the white paper or wall happen to be grey; do we away have to manually adjust the exposure to get the correct true color? I away thought that adjusting the white balance automatically fix the problem and brings out the true color in photography. Please correct me.
I have read the link on Histograms; very good details. I took a picture on the kitchen counter top; which is granite and has a tone of fine black dots with light brown/grey base color. The taken picture always appears to be Black dots on Grey base; which is very different on the actual one. Is this problem (not getting the true color) caused by the white balance or exposure? From the picture histogram chart; it shows a sharp spike on mid tone; nothing on the left & right of the chart. Please correct me. Jason
@disqus_bEf7d0PSH1:disqus This is the confusion right here: do we away have to manually adjust the exposure to get the correct true color?
Exposure and color are NOT controlled by the same thing. Exposure is controlled by Exposure Compensation or by adjusting your shutter speed or aperture in Manual Mode. Changing the exposure will NOT affect the color of the image/subject.
Color is controlled by setting the White Balance. Changing the White Balance will NOT make your image darker or light. Auto white balance attempts to correct for color casts – but sometimes it does a good job, other times it can be fooled. If your subject is heavily green like a forest or grassy area – AWB will add too much pink to compensate. If you’re shooting a sunset AWB will actually try to “correct” out all the warn yellows and pinks in the sky and your colors will be drab as a result. So while it does a good job most of the time – it’s not perfect.
Your example of the counter top is EXACTLY what AWB is designed to do. It looked at the counter top and saw a tint – so it removed it for you to make it more neutral. That’s what it does – that’s its job. If you want the accurate color choose one of the the WB presets like daylight or shade depending on the lighting conditions. Or do a custom one using the white paper first. Lay it on the counter and do your test shot – set the custom WB to that image and the camera to the custom WB (PRE on Nikon) setting. Then shoot the counter again and the color will be correct.
As for the spike in the middle that is exposure and your camera meter reading the scene and adjusting it to medium grey – see the histogram article – that explains why and how to solve it. Basically the camera doesn’t know the counter is black or darker grey.
https://dev-dpm-2.instawp.xyz/white-balance/
https://dev-dpm-2.instawp.xyz/3-tips-for-creating-spectacular-sunset-photos/
https://dev-dpm-2.instawp.xyz/the-difference-between-reflective-and-incident-metering-and-how-they-work/
Message noted; many thanks.
When I took a picture using custom white balance mode; if the pictures turns out to be too yellow or blue; or sometimes pink on the corners; do I conclude that the custom white balance fails or there is other problem with exposure & shutter speed? What can I do to correct these?
Regards
Jason
You may not be doing the custom white balance correctly. I have no way of checking that for you, sorry. See if you can find someone locally with more experience (and who knows the same camera brand you use) that can walk you through it.
Many thanks for your kind help; much appreciated.
Please go back to the drawing board with this article…
“make everything medium or 18% gray”
Gray cards are NOT 18% gray and medium gray is not 18% gray. The reflectance of the card approximates 18% but can be as low as 16%; the gray itself is 50% gray which IS medium gray. The RGB values are 128, 128, 128, not 46, 46, 46, which is (roughly) 18% gray.
“Set your focus point to single and choose the center one. Your camera will meter the same place it focuses.”
Nikon’s do, Canon’s don’t.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b8cc7033c25c0096ac2a6a50745c1faa8b9776a9ad62a951a761e1ec0ea771b.png
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I’m well aware of the values of true “middle” gray but you’ll notice I didn’t say middle I said medium. That is a term that is commonly used and I use it to explain to complete novices how this works. If you do not like my teaching methods there are plenty of other photography sites on the internet that may be more to your liking. Have a great day.
Thank you so much Darlene for you easy to understand instructions. I can’t wait to give this a try.
NO problem glad you found it easy to follow
Hi Darlene. My collapsible card is about 12″ X 12″ with a lighter grey on one side and white on the other. I’ve had it for years and probably only tried to use it a couple of times. When would the white be used over the grey? Thanks.
I was going to say that – but it’s a pretty small one to be of much use for anything other than macro or flowers.
You can also use the white to set a white point in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Yes exactly!
Hi Darlene. What I don’t really understand (and it’s not often I admit to anything I don’t understand) is why it is so important to get your light balance right in camera rather than taking a RAW file and adjusting in Photoshop. I normally have my WB set for cloudy as I prefer the slightly warmer image and, I suppose, I could imagine using a fluorescent setting if I was taking photos in an office crammed full with old fashioned tubes and I wanted to get rid of the green tinge, I could even imagine getting rid of the orange tinge under incandescant lighting but neither of these really exist much any more.
So, yes, I understand the need for pin-sharp focus, correct exposure, no camera movement on lower shutter speeds, using the “sweet spot” in your lens, opening the lens over upping the ISO. But what is it that sends me to a reasonably complicated menu to adjust the color of the light when I can do it so easily in post processing? This is a serious question and I really would like to know the answer.
Of course, 30 years ago we all used a lightmeter, a flashmeter and we even changed film for different light colors or we used a rather intimidating blue filter to get rid of the orange cast from light bulbs (an 80A) but now? Would the attached have improved from altering the color balance in camera? Why not leave it alone?
So looking forward to your reply.
Edmund – personally? I do what you do – choose one of the WB presets that is closest to the lighting conditions. I don’t use custom white balance all that much at all. But I have had a lot of questions about what to use a gray card for and that is one of the uses – so I just wanted to answer it completely.
As for getting it closer in camera – one reason is if you are doing a portrait for a customer or job for a client. You want to show them the image on screen (or in the commercial photography world, tethered to a computer and on a larger screen) and you want it to come up correct looking from the get go. Back in the days of film if I took a test shot for a commercial client (in the days of film that meant a polaroid instant photo) and showed them something that was too dark and off color – they’d fire me. So partly it’s ingrained in me to get it as close as possible in camera from my history. It also means I have less processing and correcting to do in computer later.
So there are a few reasons for you. Hope that helps.
Thanks Darlene, I remember the Polaroid back – much thicker than the dark slides – luckily I was only photographing properties for high-end real estate brochures so I didn’t have to show the Polaroids to anyone but I certainly got through a whole load of them.
Very good tip about getting in close. With properties it was always the opposite although for travel photography I often find that a single gargoyle can be more emotive than a whole cathedral (if that makes sense).
The link to the e-book you were promoting is no longer on this page, please send it to me and, as promised, I will buy it. Your customer service is exemplary.
Best wishes. Edmund
Sorry I’m not sure which ebook that is – can you refresh my memory? I only have one that is free, but you likely have that one already.
Any one you think will be helpful to someone of around your age but I am particularly interested in the difference between M4/3 and full frame – obviously the pixel density and ability to make a larger picture. Having said that, I promised you I would buy a book so any one you think may be good for “advanced amateurs”
Please just recommend one – I promised to buy so not free! The thing I feel most uncomfortable with is street photography – I don’t have the nerve to just snap people and I don’t have the confidence to ask them so help with that would be great but otherwise any one of your books. Is there a website? I couldn’t find a list of books on digitalphotomentor.com
With many thanks
Edmund
Try anything on my list here! http://astore.amazon.com/dpmentor-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=1
I have a cleaning cloth by Pearson in 18% gray. Would this work? Shall I care about the wrinkles?
It should work long as you get the whole thing in – try to keep wrinkles flat if you’re metering off it. Shadows will throw off the reading.
Thanks, Darlene. When I started learning about photography more years ago than I care to remember, the very talented amateur who was my mentor gave me this priceless piece of information. He told me that, in extremis, if you don’t have a grey card handy, use the palm of your hand. It has the same tonal value, roughly, of a grey card and it’s always available. What’s more it’s free and it works whatever your skin colour. It’s not super accurate, but it’s good enough and certainly in these days of digital manipulation it’s better than nothing; it gets you close enough to what you want for tweaking in LR, or whatever you use. Back then he seemed enormously old to me and now I’m riding up to meet him; how time flies. Happy to pass it on down the generations.
Thanks Graham! Unfortunately your mentor was close but not quite correct. If you are caucasian then your skin tone is usually 1 stop lighter than 18% gray. So if you meter off your hand, use exposure compensation of +1 and you’ll be close. It is affected by skin tone and color. Someone of African or Indian decent may be equal to 18% gray or they might be darker. You need to test and know your own hand – but yes it is a good trick to know.
Thanks, Darlene. When I started learning about photography more years ago than I care to remember, the very talented amateur who was my mentor gave me this priceless piece of information. He told me that, in extremis, if you don’t have a grey card handy, use the palm of your hand. It has the same tonal value, roughly, of a grey card and it’s always available. What’s more it’s free and it works whatever your skin colour. It’s not super accurate, but it’s good enough and certainly in these days of digital manipulation it’s better than nothing; it gets you close enough to what you want for tweaking in LR, or whatever you use. Back then he seemed enormously old to me and now I’m riding up to meet him; how time flies. Happy to pass it on down the generations.