Paid $60 for a color checker card and my concrete photos finally stopped looking purple | Color Theory in Practice

Vera Roberts · 2026-10-06T19:20:02.994805+00:00

I do product photos for a small concrete countertop shop here in Spokane, and for months my shots kept coming out with a weird purple cast on the gray samples. I blamed my camera and nearly bought a new lens, but a guy at the local camera store told me to grab a $60 color checker card instead. I shot one frame with the card in the picture, set that as my white balance reference, and the difference was night and day, the grays finally matched the actual slabs. The client noticed on the very next batch and said the samples looked truer to the showroom. If you shoot anything with neutral tones, that little card does way more than any auto white balance setting. Anyone here using one of the cheap $12 versions, does it hold up or should I not bother?

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Paid $60 for a color checker card and my concrete photos finally stopped looking purple | Color Theory in Practice - The Design Community Hub