Take Control of White Balance for Better Photos

Different sources of light are actually different colours of light. We usually don’t see these differences because our eyes adjust the colours and make them look white. But a camera can and will capture the different colours of light so we need to understand it. When you set your camera’s white balance this affects the colour of the light. Most people keep their camera set to auto white balance so the camera will determine what colour the light is and set the white balance so that colour appears white. But there are times when we want to take manual control of the white balance of our camera. Before we do that, let’s take a closer look at colour temperature and white balance.

Colour Temperature

What is colour temperature? Before digital cameras, images were captured on film. Those films had a colour temperature. Most film that people bought was for use outdoors. When a photographer captured an image outside the light looked like our eyes see it – neutral or white in colour. But if we took that same film inside, the light from the bulbs looked very yellow or orange. This is because different lights sources actually emit different colours of light.

One huge advantage of a digital camera over a film camera is the ability to adapt the camera settings so that no matter which type light you are capturing images in, the lights will appear white. But this doesn’t mean because you have a digital camera that you can just forget all about the different colours of light.

White Balance

A photographer changes the colour of the light by changing the white balance on their camera. We just learned that different types of lights have different colour temperature and these temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin.

The colour temperature of mid-day daylight is 5500 degrees Kelvin. An overcast day is 6500 degrees Kelvin. The setting or rising sun is around 2000 degrees Kelvin. An incandescent bulb is around 3000 degrees Kelvin. The lower the number, the more orange the light source is. The higher the number, the more blue the white source is. The chart gives some examples of various colour temperatures and an example of the source of that colour of light.

So how does this translate to your camera? On your camera, you have options when selecting white balance. You can choose from a range of setting that are often linked to pictures like a sun, a lightbulb and others. You can also manually select a white balance in degrees Kelvin on most cameras.

The extremes of white balance can have a huge effect on the mood of your images. These two images were captures seconds apart but using different white balance settings.

Adjusting your White Balance

We adjust the colour temperature that the camera applies to your shot by adjusting the white balance. The white balance is just what the name implies. You can make the colour of the light in your image look white. Now most people keep their white balance on auto. Basically, the camera will look at the scene and determine the colour temperature of the light source and adjust it so that the light in your picture will look white. This is fine for most situations, but sometimes we want the light to appear more orange or more blue.

So we can try to change the white balance setting. We can take it off auto and change it to one of the other settings. Most cameras will give you scene choices for your white balance like cloudy, shade, incandescent, fluorescent, sunshine, and flash. Most cameras will also allow you to choose exactly what colour temperature you want for your image, anywhere from 2500 to 10,000 degrees Kelvin.

This may seem a bit confusing or counter intuitive, but if you want your image to appear more yellow, then you need to set the white balance closer to the 10,000 end of the scale. If you want it to appear more blue, then you set your white balance closer to the 2500 end of the scale. This is because when you set your white balance close to 10,000, you are telling the camera that the light is very blue and it will compensate by making the image yellow. And when you set the white balance closer to 2500, you are telling the camera the light is very yellow and it will make your image more blue. 

Enhancing the colour that is already in your scene

One of the tools for your photography toolkit is to be able to adjust the white balance of an image to make it more yellow or blue. One of the techniques I will try sometimes in relation to white balance is to enhance the colours that are already there. So if there is a setting or rising sun and the light is already yellow, I will choose a white balance closer to 10,000 to make it even more yellow.

You have to be careful that you don’t make something look extremely unnatural. Especially look at people’s skin tones for an unnatural yellow tone. If you have a scene that has a lot of blue light like in the evening after the sun has gone down, try creating a blue moody image by setting your white balance closer to 2500.

The RAW Advantage

If you are capturing images as jpegs, the white balance that you choose when capturing an image is saved in the file that you capture. While you can adjust the temperature and tint of the image afterwards, you won’t have full control over the colour. This can be a problem when your white balance settings are off or when you have mixed lighting in your image.

When you capture a RAW image, your camera is capturing all the uncompressed data that came into the camera and your white balance can be changed or reset. The quality of your image will not be affected by changing your white balance when working with a RAW file.

Below is an image which was captured with the correct white balance.

These two images were captured with incorrect white balance and the white balance was adjusted afterwards in Adobe Lightroom. Can you tell which one is the jpeg and which one is the RAW file?

The image on the left is the jpeg and the image on the right is the RAW file. No matter what I did to try to adjust the jpeg, I couldn’t get very close to the correct white balance. The RAW file was really easy to adjust.

This video shows the options you have when working with a jpeg or a RAW file and the clear advantage that RAW files have over jpegs.

Understanding colour temperature and white balance will make you a better photographer. It will allow you to take control of your images and make editing your images easier.