White balance range

Guides and How-Tos
1

When I see Nate’s and other youtube NLP tutorials I see a WB range of 2000-2400. My WB ranges are
5000-5400. I pick the area outside the image, crop and launch NLP. the image is “normal” and there are no extreme color casts to my negs. Why are my ranges so different but normal looking?

2

I think I know why…Nate used a camera just like other posters did and I used my epson v700

3

My white balance ranges are in the 6000s assuming I am reading this correctly. Are other peoples white balance way lower than that? Is that a bad thing?

4

The white balance range will depend on number of factors, most notably:

  1. The temperature of the light from your light table (or scanner light source)
  2. The characteristic curve of the film emulsion
  3. How the film was developed
  4. If you’re using a scanner, your settings in Vuescan or Silverfast could also impact white balance (If you’re using a digital camera and shooting RAW, your in-camera white balance should not impact the white balance reading)

If you are getting a white balance reading in Lightroom in the 6000s after selecting the unexposed border area of the film emulsion (be careful you are not selected a non-film element, like a film holder), that probably means that you have settings during the scanning process that are already doing some of the white balancing.

-Nate

5

I don’t believe I have anything messing with the white balance before adding to Lightroom.

My setup:

In Lightroom I normally white balance off of the area between shots, so in that case would the indication be either the film or development?