Using a gray-card is pretty simple:

  1. Set up your lighting
  2. Place your ‘gray card’ in the shot
  3. De-focus your camera a little and take a photo. This ensures that you capture the colour, and not the texture, of your gray card
  4. Remove the gray card, and take photos as usual. Every time you change the lighting, go back to step 2.
  5. When you’ve imported your photos into your favourite software package, use the gray card as a ‘sample’ to set a custom white balance.
  6. Copy the white balance across to all the other photos in the set – or until the next time you’ve photographed your gray card.

You can now sit back in the knowledge that all your photos have the same white balance. If it turns out that it is still slightly off, you could adjust it further, and then copy that white balance profile across to the other photos in the shoot. [source]

Options from B&H • 3 Penguins Photography on Flickr

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