Why Don't Camera's Have Raw Histograms?

Yes, good point. I should have added more context with my original comment.

I was replying specifically to DonaldB's comment about the Auto WB in his dog photo.

No, I think I'm going to just conclude that you haven't got jack to support your assertion and that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I used to pull out my WB reference all the time. However, it rarely resulted in the colors I wanted, so now I just hit "Auto" for WB and then almost always follow that up with manual tweaks that look good to me.

Two things come up all the time for me. One is that I often find myself shooting during "Golden Hour" and getting neutral colors negates the whole point of doing that. The other is that I am using UniWB in my cameras to better see how the Raw file is being exposed. Thus, I'm not using Auto WB on my cameras; however, I think it's time to consider some experimenting with it and comparing its results with using Auto WB in my Nikon software that I use to convert NEF files.

There is no technical advantage for raw shooters to use auto WB in the camera if they have access to tools that can do at least as good a job in post. But some Nikon cameras have a colorimeter of sorts that's outside of the image path.

I use Auto WB because my understanding is that the effect of WB is not applied to the raw data. The WB the camera sets with Auto WB or even with user selected WB is stored in the raw file's EXIF and then optionally used by the raw converter app to set WB on its initial rendering.

The final WB is actually set by the user in the raw converter.

The irony: there was no pure AWB on his dog photo. Pure AWB did a better job with whites.

That is correct.

Actually, it can be, if the tool recognizes the mosaic.

Thank you. That is one benefit I see with shooting raw. The WB setting in the camera is largely irrelevant because WB is applied during the raw conversion.

So if someone accidentally screws up the WB setting in the canera it is easily fixed in post.

What tool are you talking about?

1. RawTherapee applies a white balance before demosaic as some of their demosaic algorithms behave better with white balanced input. After dm it's unapplied so the interactive WB tool can do is thing.

2. rawproc's white balance tool can be inserted anywhere in the tool chain, pre- or post-demosaic. It knows whether the data is RGB or RGB and its ilk..

Neither of those affects the raw data.

Half of the time we are left to try and understand what you are talking about

Much of the time we have to read into what you are putting out there and makes about as much sense as the above, until we interpret what you are typing

Oh, I see where you’re coming from. In the context of the lack of downsides to setting WB in post, what’s important is that the raw data in the file the camera writes is not affected by the WB setting in the camera.

no they do it because NO ips monitor can maintain an accurate calibration over time. at $4000 for a monitor you would think they could but they cant same as cheap monitors.

That's just plain dumb :-D because are you not aware that all monitors will go out of calibration to some extent over time? lolol:-D.

For people who know what they are doing it is not very time consuming to calibrate and profile a monitor.

Currently you don't even profile your monitor and calibrate it by only your eyes.

All this explains why you see yellow casts that are not real.

You still haven't posted the histogram you foolishly claimed shows a yellow cast in the edited dog image I posted :-D

If the monitor calibrates itself every night, you don't have to worry about drift. If you don't have a monitor that does that, and you calibrate it once a week or so, you don't have to worry about drift.

I don't think there was ever a portrait where a warming light modifier was not used to supply some contrast to my subjects face.
I also use custom WB targets picked because they offer a WB that gives a nice warming natural glow.
Much of the time for me at least, I try and mimic light and WB that gives a natural and pleasing look, There is a few times that accurate color and WB is my goal but this never really creates a pleasing image.
One time I was called to do some work where the main subject the product had be accurate for display purposes, while having people around the subject.

The final image really needed 2 processing, one for the accuracy of the product colors and the second for the people to create a pleasing image.