Need some camera HELP!

[BrooksReef]

Hi all! I'm terrible at getting the white balance correct in my photos. I run a bluer spectrum, and often try to take pictures with just the Stunner LEDs on. Is there a good 'basic' setting that I can use, or have something to go off of? What do I adjust to get the real colors of what I'm looking at?

Thank you in advance!

 

[blurry]

depends on if your camera can shoot RAW. I have had poor success balancing processed JPGs

I picked up an 18 percent gray card at the photo store, had it laminated at staples. Took some pictures of the card in the tank with the camera set to RAW. Then use your editor to set the color balance based on a selected area (select the card). once I used a spot of the card without glare from the glossy laminate I had a near perfect color balance.

save settings and apply to future pics. I to a digital photo cleanup which is built into thumbsplus and increase saturation by 10 points - this seems to create a picture which is very close to what the corals look like.

There is a difference at different depths of the aquarium, I'm not ready to tackle that yet :)

before balance:

after: