White Balance

[b2martin]

I am using Adobe Photoshop CS3 with ACR 4.2 and Nikon NX version 1.2.  I have used Photoshop for years, and only started using Nikon NX about 2 weeks ago - have a D200 and software is on a PC.

It appears that white balance inputs for ACR (temperature & tint) are independent of white balance that was set in the camera, but Nikon Nx is not.  If I have an image of a gray card in the same lighting conditions as the image I want to correct it does not matter that the in camera white balance was set to different values for the gray card and image if using ACR, but with NX it appears they both have to be set to the same white balance value.  Am I wrong here?

It appears that when you input new values for white balance in ACR it calculates new values from the RAW file, but NX appears to modify an image that was calculated using the in camera white balance settings.  

This means you could not set camera white balance to Auto and take a picture of a gray card to correct images that are not acceptable if using NX, but you could with ACR.

[digitaldog]

The WB data is just EXIF data and a suggestion to the converter. In the case of Nikon, at least in the past, there was an attempt to encrypt the WB data. But it doesn't matter, you can set this anyway you wish.

[b2martin]

I understand you can change white balance to another value, but that is not my point.  

If you take a picture of a gray card in direct sunlight with camera white balance set to incandescent and another picture in direct sunlight with camera white balance set to fluorescent you can't use the gray card image to correct white balance in the second image with Nikon Capture NX, but you can with ACR.  The test I ran indicates this is true.

[digitaldog]

I understand you can change white balance to another value, but that is not my point. 

If you take a picture of a gray card in direct sunlight with camera white balance set to incandescent and another picture in direct sunlight with camera white balance set to fluorescent you can't use the gray card image to correct white balance in the second image with Nikon Capture NX, but you can with ACR.  The test I ran indicates this is true.
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Sure you can, at least in the Adobe products. The Raw data doesn't care. Its Grayscale. All the camera records is what it thinks is the illuminant based on what you set and writes some EXIF data. But the Raw data itself isn't affected. You can use the EXIF or ignore it. Or render the WB any way you wish.

IF NX will not let you alter the WB based on the EXIF data, its a royal mess. But I can't comment on that product, I can't use it.

[b2martin]

I ran the test again and it does work like ACR, don't know what I did wrong the first time.  Please excuse the post.