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A Guide to Setting White Balance

Understanding white balance and using it to create awesome photos!

Setting white balance is a fundamental part of taking good pictures. If it sounds exactly like the kind of thing you'd rather avoid as a fan of the simplicity of digital photography - think again!

There's no need for a physics lesson to begin gettings to grips with it. The tiny amount of knowledge required for understanding white balance brings enormous benefits for your photography.

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What Is White Balance and Why Is It Important?

Essentially, because the camera does not interpret light in the same way as the human eye, it's important to let it know how much weight you wish to give to the reds, greens and blues in an image (understanding digital cameras). This has a big impact on the neutral areas too, like white/grey overcast skies - hence 'white balance'.

So setting white balance has a major impact on the character of your photos. The more red there is in the light, the 'warmer' it is, and the more blue the 'cooler'. By themselves, cameras often misjudge this 'colour temperature' and produce images that are irritatingly different from the original subject.

When photographing something that is predominantly red in colour for instance, the camera may well interpret this as a warm light source and compensate by throwing a blue 'colour cast' over the whole image. Not good.

Understanding white balance allows you to manually fine tune the colour temperature and produce accurate images every time. You may also wish to emphasise the blues or reds in a given picture by deliberately choosing an 'inaccurate' camera white balance setting.

Cool Colour Temperature	Warm Colour Temperature

It wasn't long ago that film photographers where forced to apply specific filters (best camera filters) to their lenses in order to account for different lighting situations, and produce images with the right colour tone. Thank God for digital photography!

Quotable Quote:

Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvellous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

4 Easy Ways To Control Photography White Balance

There are broadly 4 ways in which you can use digital camera settings and/or Photoshop for setting white balance. Getting to know each of them will make understanding white balance a lot easier...

Using The Pre-Set Camera White Balance Options

This method for setting white balance is quick, easy and effective when taking pictures in JPEG mode. Digital cameras have made things really easy by providing a list of white balance options in the menus that correspond to common lighting situations, like 'cloudy', 'daylight' and 'shade', with a balance of colours appropriate to those scenarios.

Simply choose the option in your digital camera settings that corresponds to the conditions you are shooting in, and off you go! This is a fairly accurate method of controlling colour temperature. The full list of pre-set options typically includes - beginning with the warmest / reddest and moving to the coolest / bluest:

(these flowers were shot in cloudy conditions)

Shade		Balances the temperature of shots taken in the shade by adding a warm tone.
Cloudy		For accurate white balance when shooting under overcast skies. The correct setting for the light in these photos.
Flash		Compensates accurately for the specific tone a flash throws on to the picture.
Daylight		This camera white balance setting is suitable for most outdoor photography. It is often even accurate in cloudy conditions.
Fluorescent		Harsh fluorescent light makes manual control of the white balance essential.
Tungsten		Much indoor photography relies on this pre-set white balance option. Adding a strong blue tone compensates for a tungsten light source.

Photography white balance does not just allow you to produce accurate pictures. You can get creative by playing around with the levels of blues and reds in an image. Try shooting Autumnal landscapes in a 'cloudy' or 'shade' setting to emphasise the reds and oranges. Or photograph watery subjects on a fluorescent setting to bring out zingy blues.

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Set the White Balance After Taking a Shot Using a Raw File Format

Photography is very often about opportunism. Digital photography makes this a whole lot easier. Even selecting white balance from the pre-set options on your digital camera settings is no big deal.

But what if you're shooting in broad daylight and suddenly notice a great picture opportunity in a shaded area? If you stop to adjust the white balance the moment will have passed - there goes another one!

Imagine how great it would be if you could just seize the instant, snap away, and deal with all the technical details after the event. You can! Using a Raw file format makes it possible - here is a full guide to using it.

A Raw image contains only the basic, raw information that was recorded the moment a picture was taken. Whilst JPEG's are given a set of little 'in-camera' adjustments to improve their quality - including applying the white balance - Raw photos remain 'unfinished' until they have been fine tuned in Photoshop (or other software).

Opening your Raw image in Photoshop will bring up the 'Camera Raw dialogue box'. Setting white balance here involves moving the Temperature and Tint sliders across to the desired positions.

Alternatively, select the white balance tool above the image preview - it looks like a pipette - and click on a neutral gray area of your photo to set an accurate white balance. (Here is a full tutorial on the Photoshop Raw file converter...)

(The Photoshop Raw file converter - with temperature and tint sliders, used for setting white balance, highlighted. Seeing the tonal changes that occur through moving these sliders really helps with understanding white balance)

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Use a White Balance Card

I rarely use this method, but it can be really useful in situations where you have plenty of time to get things just right. Unfortunately, it is often poorly explained: 'Take a picture of a piece of card before you begin a shoot and everything will look great' !

Using a white balance card is actually very simple and it will help you in understanding white balance more fully. Here are some step-by-step instructions:

Either find a piece of pale gray card, with no other colours or details on it, or buy a specially made one from a camera store.
Select the 'custom', or 'pre', white balance mode in your digital camera settings. This mode allows you set the white balance for the specific conditions that you are in.
Take your white balance card and hold it so that it is clearly covered by the light in which you will be shooting.
Take a reading of the card by photographing it. Cameras differ here. With mine, I select the 'pre' white balance mode and then hold down the white balance button (a physical button on top of my camera). When the word 'pre' begins to flash I take a photo of the card and the word 'good' flashes up. On other cameras, you simply photograph the card then select the image in your camera menus as the basis for your custom white balance.
The image of this white balance card will serve as the camera's guide for setting colour temperature, so long as you remain shooting on the 'colour' or 'pre' setting. If the light changes, take another reading of the white balance card.

Alternative: Combining Photoshop and a white balance card.

A white balance card can also be useful without having to use the 'custom' or 'pre' setting. Simply take a photo of the card, again bathed in the surrounding light, but this time on 'auto' mode. Carry out your shoot as normal.

(Using the Levels adjustment dialogue box for setting white balance)

Back home, open your initial picture of the gray card in Photoshop. Select 'Levels' under 'Create Adjustment Layer' and choose the middle pipette tool to set the gray point. Click on the white balance card in your photo. Save the picture.

Now open one of the actual photos from your shoot. Press 'Control-Alt-L' to apply the same 'Levels' settings you just used for the white balance card picture to this photo. Perfect white balance!

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Setting White Balance For JPEG Images In Photoshop

A 'Levels' adjustment layer in Photoshop can also be used where a white balance card is not involved. So imagine you have a great JPEG photo, but setting white balance went a bit wrong! The colour temperature is all wrong and you don't have the freedom to fine tune things as with Raw files.

(Setting white balance to 'fluorescent' in cloudy conditions has produced a distorted colour temperature in this shot)

With your photo opened in the Editor workspace, create a Levels adjustment layer. Select the leftmost pipette tool, for setting the 'black point'. Find an area in your photo that you know should look black and click on it. Now select the middle pipette, for setting the 'gray point' - click on an area that is supposed to be gray. Finally, do the same with the right hand pipette for setting the 'white point'.

You will see the balance of colours in your photo changing as you do this. It is not an alternative to setting white balance correctly before you take a photo, but is very effective nevertheless.

(Setting white balance by pointing out areas intended to be white, gray and black in Photoshop, returns the colour temperature to normal)

So now you know all about setting white balance, these articles will help you brush up on your knowledge of aperture - what is aperture? - and shutter speed - what is shutter speed?

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