Manually Set Your White Balance For Accurate Color

I generally recommend that photographers shoot in RAW mode which means that you can easily set your white balance in post as if you had done it in the field. But that does mean that you spend (waste) time in post when you could have easily done the right thing in camera.

I have come to a point in my life where I realize that I would just rather get things right in camera. I prefer my finger on the shutter button as opposed to a mouse button. So now I almost always try to set my white balance according to the conditions I am shooting in.

Let’s quickly discuss what white balance is all about.

Nearly all cameras (from the most basic “point & shoot” to the most advanced DSLR) come with the ability to set white balance. It’s usually found either in the camera’s menu system, on the camera – in the form of a button often marked “WB”, or both.

Here are the typical choices found on most modern cameras. Not all will be important to all photographers, but I will list them here anyway.

• Auto – The Auto setting helps in adjusting the white balance automatically according to the different lighting conditions.
• Tungsten – This mode is used for light under a little bulb like tungsten, and it is often used while shooting indoors. The tungsten setting of the digital camera cools down the color temperature in photos.
• Fluorescent – This mode is used for getting brighter and warmer shots while compensating for cool shade of fluorescent light.
• Daylight (also called Direct Sunlight or Sunny) – This mode is for the normal daylight setting, while shooting outdoors.
• Cloudy – This mode is great when shooting on a cloudy day. This is because it warms up the subject and surroundings and allows you to capture better shots.
• Flash – The flash mode is required when there is inadequate lighting available. This mode helps pick the right White Balance under low light conditions.
• Shade – A shaded location generally produces cooler or bluer pictures. You use this setting to warm up the surroundings while shooting shaded objects.
• Manual – This mode allows you to set your camera to a very specific color temperature. The kelvin is a unit of measure for temperature based upon an absolute scale. It is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units (SI) and is assigned the unit symbol K. I won’t get into a deep discussion on this system since it is beyond the scope of a basic blog post like this.

While selecting the appropriate white balance requires more thought than setting your camera to Auto White Balance (AWB,) it’s worth the effort. This will deliver photos that have the same general color tones in any sequence of images shot under identical conditions.

There are three WB modes that will impact most photographers. If you are making photographs on a cloudy day, set your WB to “cloudy.” Then forget about WB until the sun comes out or the clouds disappear. Likewise, if you are shooting on a sunny day, set your WB to “daylight” until it gets cloudy. If you are shooting in open shade set your WB to “shady.”

There is one other application of manual WB that I want to mention. If you want to (for artistic reasons) trick the camera into making an image that offers colors which are bluer than normal then use the “shady” or “tungsten” WB even when shooting in sunlight. And you can also set your WB to “daylight” or “fluorescent” when you want to purposely warm up a photo.

Manually set the white balance that is appropriate for the lighting conditions you are working with. This will help you achieve much more consistent color in your photographs and help you avoid doing extra work in post.

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