Is the Grey card the only card you use to set your white balance? Then when and How do you use the black and the white card?

In digital photography, generally you use the Gray card for setting the White Balance, either using the custom white balance settings in the camera, or if saving images to a raw file format (not JPG), later in your photo editing software. I frequently use the Gray card to set my white balance at each new location, and only occasionally use the white and black cards to tweak the exposure.After setting the White Balance using the Grey card, the Black and White cards can be used to maximize the dynamic range of the exposure. This is more important when shooting in manual mode but can help in identifying when auto-exposure is not giving you the best results.When adjusting the image exposure, either in full manual or more frequently just using the exposure compensation setting, I put all three cards into the scene and shoot them all together fairly close-up. FYI – The cards don’t need to be in focus to work so keep the focus on the subject. Then I tweak the camera exposure so that the histogram shows the spike corresponding to the Grey near the middle, but more importantly the spike for the White card appears near, but not falling off, the right edge of the histogram. This is assuming you want to capture all the highlights in your image, like the details in clouds or a white wedding dress. If the dark shadows are more important, like when shooting in an alley, then make sure the small spike on the left side of the histogram corresponding to the light bouncing off the black card is also shown.I suggest setting your exposure and white balance when shooting and make minor tweaks in software later as needed. When saving to a raw file type, you have a greater ability to make exposure and color adjustments after the photo shoot and still get excellent results. In the case of shooting raw files, capturing an image with all three cards permits you to adjust the white balance and exposure limits later for that image using the cards in the image as reference. You can even carry over those adjustments to other photos from that same photo shoot, but only if the lighting does not change AND the camera settings do not change.

When I photograph the grey card for a custom white balance my photos turn out yellow. What am I doing wrong?

I had the same issue. The grey card is not pure grey (and the white card is DEFINITELY not pure white). It makes all my images have a yellow/green tint when I try to balance with this set of cards.

ASIN	B01DPV5PUA
Best Sellers Rank	#2 in Photographic Light Meter Grey Cards
Customer Reviews	4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,911)
Date First Available	April 1, 2016
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer	No
Item Weight	0.32 ounces
Item model number	GreyCard-S
Manufacturer	Anwenk
Product Dimensions	3.35 x 2.17 x 0.12 inches

Anwenk Grey Card White Balance Card 18% Exposure Photography Card Custom Calibration Camera Checker Video, DSLR and Film

Details

Description

Specifications

Common Questions