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Webheath DPC

Back to Basics - White Balance

I recently watched a YouTube video by Sean Tucker, who when discussing white balance with a friend was told his approach was unusual. He basically has white balance permanently set on Daylight whatever the condition or time of day. His reason was he wanted the colour to be a reproduction of how he saw it.


There is nothing controversial in this approach and probably most people inadvertently do the same. But it got me thinking about the merits of taking a more considered approach to white balance and options we have.


I almost always use Auto White Balance (AWB), and it does a pretty good job on my camera, and because I shoot RAW, I know I can change the white balance when processing the image. That said there will be situations where it is important to change the white balance setting in camera, especially if you are taking JPEG only.


What is White Balance?

White balance is colour temperature, measured in Kelvins (K). You adjust the white balance to ensure that the colour in your photo is adapted to the lighting conditions you are taking it in.


The easiest example is shooting Daylight white balance when indoors at night with the lights on. This produces an overly orange/ yellow cast. Changing it to fluorescent or tungsten cools the colour down to counter act the overly warm light.

4 white balances compared - Daylight – Fluorescent – Cloudy – Manually adjusted
4 white balances compared - Daylight – Fluorescent – Cloudy – Manually adjusted

In Camera Options

Most cameras have the following settings for white balance;

Auto White balance, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Fluorescent, Tungsten, Flash and Underwater

Kelvins – is a value setting. In my camera the higher the value the warmer the tone. I often use Kelvins when doing astrophotography.


Set White Balance – allows you to take a photo of a white or grey card in the light you are shooting and then use the colour in that photo to set the white balance. This is often better done for indoor photography where the consistency of light can be managed.


RAW vs JPEG

When shooting RAW it doesn’t matter what the setting is as you can change it in post processing. It is useful to change in camera though to see a closer representation of the image you have taken on the LCD.


If you shoot JPEG only, it’s more important to get the White Balance correct in camera, as options to change it are limited when it comes to post processing.


Shooting Creatively

White balance can be used creatively for certain lighting conditions.

Auto White Balance left – Shade White Balance right
Auto White Balance left – Shade White Balance right

For sunsets using Cloudy or Shade will emphasize warmth and the yellow tone, or on cold days you may want to use Fluorescent to emphasize the cold and blue tones. Remember if shooting RAW you can fine tune this in editing. If you are shooting JPEG your editing software may allow you to change the temperature (Blues and Yellows) but not the Tint (Greens and Magentas).


In Astrophotography photographers often shoot using the kelvin setting and set it somewhere in the range of 4000-4500, others just use daylight, but never AWB.


When NOT to use Auto White Balance

AWB does a good job most of the time, but if you are taking multiple shots to create a panorama, or to stack/ blend, then its best to pick one white balance so it will not change in each shot. This ensures the colour is consistent across the shots and you don't get 4 different shades of blue sky across your panorama.


Processing Options

Setting is simply the editing tools replication of the in-camera options shown above

White Balance, along with Exposure, are one of the first edits I make when processing as the base for the rest of the edits be it contrast or saturation etc.



If taken in RAW then editing software will give similar preset options that would have been available in camera.









Pick Colour/ Dropper I find is hit and miss depending on the colours and tones in the photo. I mainly choose greys, blacks or whites in the image to see what will change. It’s easy to experiment, just select and move the dropper over your image to an area that should be black, white or grey.


Temperature and Tint can either be used in conjunction with the above settings to make fine adjustments or on their own. However, I find using this with saturation and vibrance produces a great result. I get most success with this approach. This is what I do:


Remove any clipping warnings for highlights and shadows and then boost both the Saturation and Vibrancy to 100%. Then use the Temperature slider first, to get to the point where the blues and yellows are equally weighted. Then do the same with Tint for magenta and greens. It will look pretty awful but once you take the Vibrancy and Saturation back down to 0 it will be balanced.


Yellows and Blues balanced and no green or magenta cast

You may need to increase the colour saturation, vibrance or contrast a little to your preference.


Black and White

If you convert a photo to Black and White, you can use the White Balance Temperature and Tint sliders to dramatically affect the image. Whilst this is less flexible than colour channels, if you don’t have those then the Temperature and Tint sliders are a good fall back. Again, you can only do this if you are editing a raw photo.

Original White Balance

Moving the Temperature slider down and Tint up a little produces a lighter image.

Summary

I hope this has been useful either as a refresher or to learn something new. I’m certainly guilty of over reliance on auto white balance and missing out on the more creative aspects when shooting JPEG. I’m sure there are other tips some of you may have, feel free to share them in the comments of this blog.


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