Canon EOS mag

Technique Custom white balance

eBooks for your EOS eBooks are a fast and inexpensive way of building your EOS knowledge. All featured eBooks £7.00

Understanding DPP

Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software is quite easy to use and has a lot of creative potential. Understanding DPP shows you how to use the DPP software and how to get the best out of your raw files. It includes details about functions within DPP to enhance your images and will appeal to EOS users who would like to use raw, but are put off by the complexity or expense of more advanced software.

Testing custom white balance

Understanding EOS If you are new to Canon DSLR photography or would benefit from a handy introductory guide to EOS photography, then this eBook, new for 2013, is right for you. With features galore and so much technology packed into your Canon EOS camera, it is bound to seem complicated. There are so many controls and buttons. How do you know which ones to use? The truth is that you don’t have to know what every single function on your camera does in order to take great photos. You just need an understanding of the fundamentals, and an eye for a good photo. It’s also a great companion to EOS magazine, offering an introduction to the key features found on today’s EOS cameras.

cool colours (left). Shooting with a custom white balance setting (right) has given colours which are much closer to those of the original subject.

Above left and right It is not just subjects with a dominant colour which can fool the auto white balance system. Here a strong background colour has produced

Our current range of eBooks are written by EOS magazine’s former Technical Editor Andrew Gibson. eBooks are only available online. You place your order then receive an email from the publisher with a link to download your chosen eBook as a PDF, which has been optimised for reading on your computer screen or tablet.

Understanding Exposure

Have you ever wondered why your EOS camera has so many exposure modes or why it’s so easy to under- or overexpose your photos even in the most advanced metering modes? Your digital EOS camera has many clever tools to help you get exposure spot on. This eBook shows you how to use them and gives you practical steps to take to cope with any lighting situation.

Perfect exposure on your EOS camera Andrew S Gibson Understanding Exposure

Above left and right This flower was photographed using auto white balance (left) and then custom white balance (right). Because the flower does not fill the frame, AWB has got the colours very close.

Far right This balsa wood flower was shot with auto white balance (top), the camera’s fluorescent setting (centre) and with a custom white balance setting (bottom), which has given the most accurate result.

White balance in Digital Photo Professional

Understanding Lenses Split into two parts, this mini series looks at how to get the best out of your lenses, explains the technologies behind Canon’s lens range and serves as a useful buyers’ guide for future lens purchases. Part I covers Canon’s wide-angle and kit lenses. Part II looks at the standard and telephoto lenses, plus some of the more specialist lenses in Canon’s range. Included with Part II is an excerpt from Everything EOS – EOS magazine’s very own EOS system guide. It includes every lens in the Canon EOS range, past and present, particularly useful when considering a secondhand purchase.

You can use Click white balance in DPP to create a custom white balance setting. Click once on the eyedropper icon under the RAW tab in the Tools palette, then click on any white tone within the image. DPP then sets a white balance setting to make the white tone you clicked neutral in colour. This is a quick way of obtaining the correct white balance setting for RAW files. You can use this technique with any subject by placing a piece of white card in front of it, taking a test photo, then removing the card (it also works with an 18% grey card). In DPP, use the eyedropper to click on the white card, then click the Register button to register the white balance setting you’ve just obtained in one of three custom settings. To use this custom white balance setting on another image taken at the same time, click the appropriate number next to the Register button.

Below and right This photo was lit by a tungsten bulb in a desk lamp. Setting white balance to daylight gives an orange cast (top right). Using the Click white balance tool (circled bottom far right) to click on the white part of the ornament (circled right) gives a photo with a neutral colour cast (below).

Craft & Vision You can find more photography- related eBooks from Andrew Gibson and other authors on the Craft & Vision website. Prices start from $5.

Available from www.eos-magazine.com/ebooks

26 Reproduced from EOS magazine April-June 2012