Warm Cards

We all know white balancing is important. But sometimes even though you white balance, your video doesn't take on the tone you want it to. Maybe you want it to look warmer, or maybe you feel there's a hint of green. Solution: use warm cards.

Warm cards allow you to balance off a different color to change what the camera syncs to, adjusting the rest of the colors to match. So if you balance off a colder color like a light blue, your video colors can appear warmer. Under fluorescent light, you can balance off a light green, and in situations where your white is too bright to balance off of, you can use a true gray.

Can you just print any color and balance off it? Sure, but people have been doing this for years and you'd benefit to learn from them. You can buy a $70 set or print your own. For the purposes of printing (assuming you have a good printer) here's a .PDF I've made that you can just print out (and edit in photoshop).

Here are the color settings I've found out there and used in the .PDF:

Warm 1 - C/15 M/2 K/5
Warm 2 -- C/20 M10 K10
1/2 Warm - C/7 M/1 K/2
Minus Green - C/10 Y/10 K/2
1/2 Minus Green - C/5 Y/5 K/1
Gray 128 - C/52 M/43 Y/43 K/8
Gray 117 or 18% - C/55 M/47 Y/46 K/12
Kodak 169 Gray - C/39 M/33 Y/19

To learn more on white balance visit: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Where I first learned about warm card settings: http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=28090