WB problem with EOS 50D and ACR 5.2

[Dan Altick]

I took some indoor Raw shots using custom white balance this morning and they look great on my camera's LCD, but they are way too blue in Bridge CS4 and ACR 5.2 with the "As Shot" setting.  I tried ingesting with both IIP and Bridge; same problem.  I used an expodisc for the custom white balance.  Some of them actually looked ok in ACR and Bridge, but some were way too blue.  It makes me think there is a problem with custom white balance on the 50D when used with ACR.  Any ideas?

Dan

[Dan Altick]

Looks like I figured out the problem.  It appears to be the new vibrance setting coupled with a reduction in Brightness that happens at ingestion with my ACR presets.  I shoot about a stop over exposed so in camera it looks bright and in balance because there is no vibrance setting.  It was a mixed lighting situation exagerated by the vibrance and brightness reduction on ingestion.  The camera LCD does not show this.  Moral of the story: be careful with vibrance in mixed lighting situations.  It exaggerates color temperature differences.  I was shooting in my living room mid-day with a large window and interior incandesence lights.  Vibrance made the window light too blue and the interior lights too yellow.  It was exaggerated even more after the Brightness reduction.  I bounced a 3800K gelled strobe off the white ceiling and I'm sure that helped, but not enough with the vibrance and reduced brightness.  Warming everything up to about 4500K in ACR, brightening up the images a little more, and reducing the vibrance did the trick.

Dan