Light, Lines & Color

W is for White Balance

White balance is all about getting accurate color in our images; images with no unwanted color casts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know that light comes in different colors - well different color temperatures to be more accurate? Sunlight, a lightbulb and the light on a cloudy day all have different colors that are detectable by our cameras even when we don't perceive them with our naked eye (because our brain corrects things for us). We've all returned from a shoot and found our images all had a yellow, green or blue tinge to them. In order for us to get the colors in our photographs as accurate as possible, we have to adjust the white balance in our cameras for the kind of light that's around when we're shooting.

There are several ways you can avoid problems in the white balance arena:

First, you could shoot on Auto White Balance which will mean the camera will do its best to read the lighting situation it finds itself in and make appropriate adjustments. This really does work fairly well, especially outdoors.

Or, you could select the Preset White Balance Setting on your camera that best matches your surrounding light, like: Incandescent (indoor light bulb light), Fluorescent, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Cloudy, or Shade.

You could also create a custom white balance, which may sound complicated but it really isn't, you simply make your camera read the lighting where you are by reading the light off of a grey or white card and creating your own "preset". Trust me it's easy, I've been doing it all morning with great results, after reading the salient three paragraphs in my manual.

Lastly, you could simply shoot in RAW rather than JPEG. This doesn't avoid white balance issues but it does allow you to select the correct white balance in post-processing in software like Lightroom. Having said that, remember what the pros do ... they do their very best to get it right in the camera, up front. It certainly saves lots of processing time later - time that could be better spent shooting.

K is for Kelvin

In photography, there is so much to learn about light, for example, the source of light, the direction of light, and even the color of light - after all photography is "writing with light". In digital photography, the color of light is measured on the Kelvin temperature scale (K), ranging from 2000 to 10,000 - 2000 will cast a blue tint to your images and 10,000 will cast a red/orange tint to your images.

2500 Kelvin

5000 Kelvin

10000 Kelvin

This is a lot to take in and I, like you I expect, have no desire to become a scientist or a physicist. Suffice it to say:

1. Light has color and it's temperature is measured in Kelvins (K).
2. Rightly or wrongly, in digital photography color temperature and white balance are often used interchangeably. 
3. On most DSLRs, you can shoot on Auto White Balance and leave white balance decisions to the computer in your camera, or .... you could use one of the handy pre-sets.
4. Most digital SLRs have common white balance pre-sets which will allow you to shoot on a white balance that more accurately and consistently matches the light in your shooting environment, for example:
   1. Incandescent (3000K) - good for shooting indoors under artificial lights; cools the image down.
   2. Fluorescent (2,700-7,200K) - good for shooting under strip lighting situations; warms the image to compensate for the slightly green tint these images often have.
   3. Direct Sunlight (5,200K) - a mid-temperature setting good for shooting in daylight
   4. Flash (5,400K) - warms up light from a flash which is cool but not as green as fluorescent light.
   5. Cloudy (6,000K) - good for shooting on cool-color overcast days and provides warmth to the image.
   6. Shade (8,000K) - good for shooting in cooler-color conditions than even a cloudy day, like dusk; adds even more warmth.

Play with these pre-sets and as you do, you will begin to grasp white balance even if you never understand the Kelvin thing. AND, remember, if you shoot in Raw, you have a lot more flexibility in adjusting the white balance in post-processing than if you shoot in JPEG.