White Balance

Back in the day of color film, we used filters screwed on to the lens to correct white balance (WB). You would use a handy color temperature meter to find the temperature of the light. If the temp was too warm, we screwed on a cooling filter. If it was too cool, we screwed on a warming filter. There were varying degrees of filters with different hues and opacities.

Thankfully, digital photography has not only made WB easier and quicker, it's also made it forgiving. When you shoot in RAW, you have the ability to change the WB if the original settings were incorrect.

How do you WB? Most digital cameras have presets for lighting situations. For example, incandescent/tungsten light is a warm yellow orange.

      Example: Grab a piece of white paper at home and really study it. Try to ignore the fact that the paper is SUPPOSE to be white. If you start to notice it is really a dingy off white in your current lighting, you're a step closer to having an eye for correcting WB automatically.

So we've established that indoor lighting is warm. How do we correct this? In film we would have twisted a cooling filter on the lens. In digital we have several options. I'll discuss the 3 basic in-camera techniques for correcting digital WB.

Using presets is easiest way to WB. Typical presets vary but are usually "indoor light, fluorescent light, Flash, outdoor daylight (sunny) , cloudy/shady outdoor". Indoor light is warm and when we set are preset to the corresponding light source, it adds a digital cooling filter to offset the warmth of tungsten lighting.

What the hell does that mean?..... Well, 

Take a look at this picture below. All three images were taken on a sunny day. It was at a time were sun light is fairly neutral/optimal in color. The first image was taken with the "Tungsten" preset, resulting in a bluish image. The one in the center was taken with the "Daylight/Sunny/Fine" setting resulting in a fairly balanced image. The last image was taken with the "Cloudy/Shade" setting resulting in a orangish cast.

If I would have been shooting indoors (tungsten) my lighting would be orange and the cooling filter would offset this to get closer to neutral.

Lighting (warm/ red orange)  +  Offset (cool/ bluish greens)    = Neutral Density/ truer color

Custom is one of the most accurate ways to WB without a color temp meter. This is the time to pull out your handy cameras manual (what? you haven't read it cover to cover yet?) and read how to set custom WB. You'll need a grey card.

"Meter/ Eyeball" Method: You remember the color temp meter I mentioned? This is a time where you pull your sixiticolor out of storage or buy a new fancy one with bells and whistles. If you're reading this tutorial, you're probably not read to drop a couple $1,000 USD on equipment. You can find a used sixticolors on ebay for next to nothing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJu4k6Jvqo0

These will give you a color temperature read out in Kelvin. If your camera has a Kelvin WB option, you set it to the same temp as your reading. Viola, you have WB. It also helps to commit temp variations to memory. Below is a chart with light sources and their corresponding temperature and correction needs.

2,700–3,300 K (too warm) Incandescent light bulb

3,200 K (too warm) Studio lamps, photofloods, etc.

3,350 K (too warm) Studio "CP" light

4,100–4,150 K (too warm) Moonlight

5,000 K (too warm) Horizon daylight

5,500–6,000 K (balanced) Vertical daylight, electronic flash

6,500 K (too cool with a greyish tone) Daylight, overcast

6,500–9,300 K (too cool with a greenish tone) LCD or CRT screen

What about mixed sources? Set to your main source. You can do fine tuning in post by masking and selecting specific areas of uneven white balance.

WB for creative use: If you look at my gallery, you'll notice I'm a "cool girl". (<-----corny photography joke ). I love to cool down the color palette of all my images for the most part. It's a creative choice. I intentionally set my WB a bit warmer then the actual situation to get a cooler tone . In portraiture, I tend to shoot a WB to complement skin tone and then in post, mask out the skin and cool everything else down. Call it my blue period.

You can give digital photos a dated look by setting the WB to cooler then actual lighting. You'll end up with a warm tone reminiscent of aged photos stored improperly.

The drawbacks of digital white balance in digital photography, we are at the mercy of others. With film we could select which printer we would use or print photos ourselves. Now we display our images online on sites that compress our images even more then we did in post processing to jpeg formt. The viewer's monitor has a array of color options via software and hardware. How do we know our images are being viewed the correct way? We don't! What we can do is try to make our colors is post processing as accurate as possible (for printing) and cross our fingers that variations of others' monitors won't cause a drastic discrepancy. In my humble opinion this is similar to the film world in that our prints were at the mercy of the developers (if we didn't develop our own C41 process color....LOL). Difference is we could bitch and ask for a reprint before anyone else saw that crap.

Warning Anecdote: At a photography workshop I attended, a long time photo journalist asked me to take his camera and get a couple shots with him in a group. We were outside and I noticed his WB was set to fluorescent lighting. All of his images had blue cast on them. I pointed it out and he said "oh, I guess these will get turned into b/w". I explained to him that he could correct the mistake in post easily since he shot RAW. After showing him how he said "I was told I should always shoot RAW, now I understand why. You just taught an old dog new tricks." 

If you shoot in RAW and use a RAM image editor such as bridge for adobe creative suite, you can adjust the shot WB setting. Freakin' awesome! Good bye screw on filters!