The white balance settings you use can make your photography better or worse. These settings allow you to compensate for small color differences in different types of light, or make the colors warmer or colder to reflect the mood you want to achieve with your photo. Once you learn how to use them, you will wonder how you have managed without them so far.
Steps
Step 1. Learn what white balance is and how it affects the photo you take with your digital camera
Different types of lighting look the same to the human gaze (although you, as a photographer, know there is a difference once you learn to notice it in all circumstances!). Our brain compensates for this difference automatically, so that a white object appears white under any type of light. But an object in dim light is "slightly" bluer than the same object in bright daylight, and incandescent bulbs are much more orange than either. People who use film need to use color filters on the lenses (or use film special). A digital camera can digitally alter color information through its sensors to compensate for the different colors resulting from different light sources. The settings that control these parameters are referred to as "white balance". In addition to compensating for color conditions, the white balance control can also be used to make it warmer or cooler for an artistic effect.
Most digital cameras have a white balance control, and will have all or some of the following settings:
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Auto white balance icon. Your camera will call this either A or AWB Automatic white balance. The relative icon is "AWB" or "A". The machine will analyze the image and set the white balance automatically.
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'"Daylight" white balance icon Daylight. Used for shooting in sunlight.
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'"Cloud" white balance icon Cloudy weather The light on a cloudy day is somewhat colder (blue) than that projected by the sun, so this setting compensates by "warming up" the image.
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'"Shade" white balance icon Twilight Subjects in dim light areas will appear bluer than in daylight (and even bluer than they are in cloudy weather), so this setting compensates by "warming up" the colors even more. You can also use it to get warmer colors even in daylight (The photo at the top of the page compares the Automatic setting with the one in Twilight).
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'"Flash" white balance icon Flash. Flash light is slightly cooler than daylight: using this setting will warm the image slightly compared to the "Daylight" setting. This only applies in situations where the flash is the only light source. to mirror the ambient light, and then use a white balance setting appropriate to the ambient light.
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Tungsten white balance icon Tungsten. The light from tungsten lamps is significantly more orange than daylight, so the machine compensates by adding blue to the image.
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Fluorescent white balance icon Fluorescent light
Fluorescent lamps are somewhat redder than daylight (but less and less than tungsten lamps), so this setting compensates by "cooling" the image somewhat.
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'The icon for preset white balance. Nikon cameras use "PRE" Preset White Balance
Take a photo of some neutral colored object under the light source, then your digital camera subtracts the color of that image from your subsequent shots. Often this is the only way to get good results in "energy saving" lighting. It can get more accurate results under artificial lighting than does the white balance setting dedicated to that type of lighting.
Setting these parameters varies from machine to machine, so you will need to read your manual. You can use a Gray Card or an ExpoDisc, or make your own ExpoDisc with a coffee filter.
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'"K" icon for manual white balance Manual White Balance
This allows you to specify a color temperature to correct. Nikon cameras call this setting "K"; on most digital cameras you can specify the temperature by rotating the front command dial.
- Some compact cameras do not use white balance settings, replacing them with scene modes. You will have to test the various effects. The "Foliage" effect will turn the colors towards green, while "Sunset" will make them warmer, etc.
Step 2. Find the white balance control on your camera
Check the manual for details, but here are a couple of suggestions:
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Digital SLRs usually have a button on the top or back of the camera, labeled "WB". Press and hold the button while turning one of the control dials to adjust it. (Nikon digital cameras do not have this feature).
Image - In compacts, this feature is usually buried in the various menus, because they don't want you to mess with it, but you can still get there. Find the right menu, usually in camera or shot mode, and press the button once more, selecting the white balance you want to use.
- If the white balance doesn't work, or if you can't find it in the menus, it could mean you're in Scene or Auto mode, which blocks this control. Try shooting in a semi-automatic exposure mode, such as Program mode.
Step 3. Try the "Auto", "Daylight", "Cloudy" and "Twilight" white balance settings in sunlight
Most of the time the colors will be too cool in "Automatic", and you will find that things look much nicer with the other settings. This varies from machine to machine; some (especially those of mobile phones) have bad white balance algorithms for certain settings.
Step 4. Try using the "cloudy" and "twilight" settings to get warmer colors, even in bright light
As mentioned, these settings are to compensate for bluer highlights, but you can also use them to warm colors. Digital cameras have built-in color correction algorithms, rather than built-in "artists"; they don't know your photographs "should" be warmer.
Step 5. Use the white balance switches to get perfect colors
You may find, for example, that under certain indoor lighting your camera achieves "near" perfect white balance in its "Auto" setting, but it may also be slightly cool, making you want to warm up the colors for flawless results. This is where the white balance switches (in some machines they are called "tone adjustment") come in: they allow you to select a preset of your machine's white balance, and adjust them warmer or cooler to achieve a perfect result. On all but the cheapest Nikon digital SLR models, you can do this by holding down the white balance button and turning the "front" control dial. Some machines do not have this feature.
Advice
- The white balance control only affects photos taken in JPEG format. If you are shooting in a RAW format, then it only serves to suggest to your RAW retouching software the correct white balance setting. You can also make changes in the balance of JPEGs in post-production, but the more extreme changes in color are better in RAW files or directly in-camera.
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You can make your photo look like it was taken with notes by setting the white balance to "Tungsten" and deliberately underexposing the shot by 1-3 notches. It is an old trick used in Hollywood, and it is called "day for night".
Image - Your white balance control cannot adequately correct all light sources. Sodium lighting, like that of street lamps in many places around the world, emits light in a very narrow part of the spectrum, and therefore cannot be corrected without completely removing the color. Try looking at a green car and a blue car in the light of the orange street lamps: they look just the same! Energy saving light bulbs are a less extreme example, and most (possibly all) digital cameras don't have the right white balance settings to correct them.
