What is white balance? White balance (WB) is the process of adjusting the colors in an image so they are realistic and accurate. Our eyes have no problem with white balance, but cameras can have problems. As my students know, I place an emphasis on getting the exposure correct in the camera. It’s equally important to get the WB correct and make the best choice for your camera.
If the WB is not correct, your photos may have a blue, orange, or yellow cast. These color changes are caused by the color temperature of the light sources in the photo and the camera’s difficulty in choosing the correct setting.
The chart below illustrates how the Color Temperature varies with different light sources.
Each of the six photos below were taken using different camera white balance presets.
The two photos below were taken on a sunny day (no clouds) at about 10 AM. As can be seen, the Auto WB (AWB) and Sunny preset yielded similar results. That makes sense, right? Sunny day!
But what happens when you use the wrong preset? In the next four photos, I used the Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten (domestic lighting), and fluorescent settings. You will note that with each of these settings, the photos have yellow or blue casts when compared to the photos above. Here the camera was set to the wrong WB for the lighting conditions.
OK, with AWB the camera did a good job of determining the correct white balance.
So why not use it all the time? I would agree under most conditions it works well, however, there are cases when AWB just doesn’t work.
The AWB photo (below left) gave a result that is too yellow. I then re-shot the photo (below right) using the camera’s Tungsten WB setting. As you see, the photo is much less yellow than the AWB photo.
Note the gray card in the photo (Below left) I could have used a Gray Card to create a custom WB setting in my camera. (See your camera’s manual for how to do custom WB with your specific camera). Professional photographers often use a gray card or another color-checking device (Link to an example) to custom white balance their camera to the particular lighting they are experiencing.
In the Photo at the bottom, I used the gray card and the WB adjustment Eyedropper in Photoshop.
A second example below left was taken by a friend, using AWB. The colors of the four rings are turquoise, purple, cobalt blue, and red. As can be seen, the AWB didn’t do a good job of getting the colors correct. I learned the photo was taken with lighting from a table lamp. Using a white balance correction in Photoshop** I shifted the color temperature toward yellow, Tungsten. This improved the colors, but the further color adjustment would be required in Photoshop** to be able to better distinguish purple and cobalt blue rings. If the Tungsten WB had been used in the original photo, the colors would have been closer to the actual from the start.
Summary: What does this all mean? I believe the best choice is to use your camera’s WB, presets, i.e. Sunny, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, and Florescent.
However, when taking photos outside in generally sunny, partly cloudy, or a mixture of sunny and shady conditions AWB should work satisfactorily most of the time. Otherwise, I’d use the WB presets It’s your choice and preference.
Explore the different WBs available on your camera for different lighting situations and see what works best for you.
Using the WB presets is especially important for indoor available light photography i.e. Tungsten and fluorescent. In the case of mixed lighting, where you have both natural i.e. sunlight and indoor lighting, it becomes a little trickier. I’d recommend taking photos with both AWB and the appropriate WB for the indoor lighting. In the case of mixed lighting, the use of the gray card should be helpful. When using a flash indoors I’d recommend setting the camera for Flash WB. I’ll share my thoughts on flash photography in a future blog.
The links below will give you greater detail on How to Set a Custom WB.
Using a Gray card to set the white balance
** When I use the term Photoshop, I’m using it generically to mean any photo post processing software that allows for making corrections to your photos.
See my prior blog post-Photo Processing Software if you wish additional information on photo processing software.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me
Private/Semi-private lessons are available. See Classes
photos available for purchase at FineArt America
© Tom Wiggins Photography 2015-2024