• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Downloads
    • Adobe Photography Plans
    • Capture One
    • DxO PhotoLab
    • DxO Nik Collection
    • Exposure X
    • ON1 Photo RAW
    • Skylum Luminar
    • Aurora HDR
  • Editing A-Z
  • About

Life after Photoshop

  • Lightroom
  • Capture One
  • DxO PhotoLab
  • Nik Collection
  • Exposure X
  • ON1 Photo RAW
  • Aurora HDR

White balance and how it works

June 7, 2020 by Life after Photoshop

Photo by Riccardo Pelati on Unsplash

White balance is an adjustment to correct and neutralise colors captured with different light sources. The color of light can vary considerably depending on the time of day and whether you’re shooting in natural light or under artificial light. Our eyes and brains constantly adapt, but the camera records color exactly as it is, which can lead to unexpected color casts and shifts in pictures.

Contents
  • Auto white balance
  • White balance presets
  • Custom white balance

Digital cameras can correct these different colors using white balance. Initially, the camera records the full range of colors in the scene, then ‘corrects’ the colors according to the white balance setting you’ve chosen on the camera. The name comes from balancing the color rendition to mimic the effect of neutral ‘white’ light.

Auto white balance

Many photographers just leave the camera to work this out using its auto white balance setting. It will analyse the scene and correct it if it thinks there is an overall color cast. This can work well, but it can also cause some issues.

First, it may come up with a different color rendition for pictures taken at the same location at the same time, simply because the lighting is different.

Second, it may end up ’neutralising’ light that’s an integral part of the picture, such as the cold blue light of an early dawn, or the warm glow of the ‘golden hour’ in landscape photography.

White balance presets

This is why cameras also have white balance presets which lock the color rendition down to a specific setting, such as ‘Daylight’, ‘Cloudy’, or ‘Tungsten’. This makes the camera’s color rendition predictable and consistent.

On some cameras it’s also possible to set the white balance manually using color temperature and tint values. Color temperature is a concept that goes back to the days of film. It’s measured in degrees Kelvin (K). Warmer light has a lower color temperature, typically 4000K or lower, neutral daylight is around 5200-5500K, and ‘cold’ light has a higher color temperature of 7500-9000K and higher.

Digital cameras offer a more sophisticated system which adds a tint value across a green-magenta spectrum. Auto white balance settings, white balance presets and manual white balance adjustments on digital cameras use both color temperature and tint.

Custom white balance

It’s also possible to set a custom white balance value using a neutral white surface or a specially calibrated grey card. The camera measures the light from this surface, calculates a correction to make it appear completely neutral and this becomes a new custom white balance setting alongside the built in white balance presets.

If you shoot RAW files rather than JPEGs, you can choose the white balance setting later when you process the image on a computer. You can still choose the white balance setting on the camera, and this will still be the default value for processing, but because the RAW file contains all the color data captured at the time, you can override this with any white balance setting you like.

With RAW files it’s also possible to use a white balance eyedropper to click on any neutral tone in the picture to instantly ‘correct’ the white balance just as if you’d created a custom white balance setting with a grey card.

Related

Filed Under: Editing A-Z, Featured, General Tagged With: Auto white balance, Color cast, Color temperature, Golden hour, JPEG vs RAW, Temperature (white balance), Tint (white balance), White balance, White balance presets

Primary Sidebar

Photo editing A-Z

Life after Photoshop’s Photo-editing A-Z

Reviews

The best image-editing software: what to look for, where to find out more

November 2, 2020

DxO PhotoLab 4 review

November 2, 2020

Exposure X6 review

October 9, 2020

More reviews

  • Lightroom CC review (2020)
  • Lightroom Classic review
  • DxO PhotoLab vs Lightroom vs Capture One – which is best for RAW files?
  • Best image cataloguing software: tools to keep your images organised
  • Skylum Luminar 4.3 review
  • ON1 Photo RAW 2020.5 review
  • ON1 360 review
  • Analog Efex Pro 2 review
  • Perspective Efex review
  • DxO Nik Collection 3 review
  • Exposure X5 review
  • Capture One 20 review

Contact

Email lifeafterphotoshop@gmail.com

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OK