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Week 4 Challenge: Understanding White Balance
Week 4 Theme: White
This week we are talking all about white balance. Huh? What’s that?
White balance is the setting that makes your pictures look as true to color as possible. Different lighting scenarios may cast colors onto your subjects creating an unrealistic representation of your image. In the simplest form, an accurate white balance will ensure that objects that appear to be white “in person” will appear white in your image.
You still with me?
Let me show you an example.
This past weekend I shot a wedding. The room in which the girls were getting ready had a mix of lighting. There was awesome natural lighting coming in from the large windows. However, I could only use the natural light if I was right by the window. The other lighting in the room was artificial fluorescent lighting {ew!}. During the time we were in that room, I was fighting my white balance and constantly switching it up.
The picture on the left was shot with the white balance setting I was using for the artificial light. I had it set for Cool-White Flourescent light. That’s why it’s blue or has a “cool” look. After realizing that my pictures were coming out blue, I reset my white balance for natural light. I set it to the Cloudy setting. I normally keep my white balance on this setting when shooting outdoors or with a ton of natural light. If I am outside and have a ton of light, then I will set it to Direct Sunlight. Once I changed my setting, I had true white balance and the picture looks much better.
But couldn’t you have just set a custom white balance?
Well, yes I could have.
How would one do that?
Well, I’m glad you asked because that is your challenge this week: setting a custom white balance. Don’t worry, I have you covered.
How to Set a Custom White Balance
Don’t worry if you only have a point and shoot. Many point and shoot cameras allow you to adjust the white balance so give it a try!
First, you need to tell your camera how to shoot white in your given lighting situations. There are two ways to do this. Buy yourself a gray card or get yourself a white piece of paper. I don’t have a gray card so I’m using a white piece of regular computer paper.
Here is the original shot with the auto white balance.
Next, I took a picture of my white piece of paper. Make sure you fill the entire frame with the paper. You may have to switch to Manual Focus in order to take the picture since there isn’t really anything for the camera to focus on.
Then, go to your camera’s menu. On my Nikon, the white balance setting is in the “Shooting Menu”. Go to “White Balance” and then “Preset Manual” {on your camera, it may say “Custom White Balance”}. You should have two choices: “Measure” and “Use Photo”. Select “Use Photo” and choose the picture of your white piece of paper. You have now set a custom white balance.
Take another picture!
Here’s a side-by-comparison just to see it better.
Can’t quite get the hang of it? Never fear. White balance is something you can always fix in post-processing but a good thing to know how to do in camera.
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Hi Steph
Please tell me there is a mistake in the above. The photo shot with Cool-White Flourescent light is indeed the left picture and not the right, otherwise I’m all back to front
).
Really enjoying the challenges, many thanks for you explanations. I’ve understood more so easily these last three weeks than in the whole of last year. Thanks again!
Gail
You are so right! I need to go fix that! The cool-white picture is on the left and the correct white balance is on the right!
I shoot in Kelvin. Does anyone else do this?
I had no idea what Kelvin was so I had to google. Here is a great article that helps with white balance: http://ow.ly/8Chqv.
This is one of my biggest problems…off to try your tips!
Good luck Heather! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hiii, I’m glad that the subject of the week is white balance…I’m struggling with my Nikon D5100 to find the best WB to my pictures, but normally it’s to blue or too yellow. If you have any tips about the WB in Nikon D5100 let me know!! Thanks..
Your white balance is going to be affected by where you are shooting. If pictures are too cool, you want to make sure you set your white balance to a Cool-White Flourescent. This should help with the blue hue {like above}. If they are too yellow, try the Cloudy setting.
Let me grab my camera! I am so going to do this. I knew it was possible, but didn’t know it is this simple
Thank You soo much!
Good luck!
I seriously could have used this tutorial a couple weeks ago. I had *many* hours PP JUST fixing white balance issues. I can’t believe it was that simple a problem to avoid. … Off to my camera (and amazon for a collapsable grey card) I go.
Thanks for your kind note!
this is cool…one i can participate in…wish me luck!
Good luck, Tina!
how do i get my picture in the blue box on this blog?…like u have ur pic? can it be done? im so new at this bloggin n stuff! hehe~
Once you’ve set a custom white balance, is that what the camera will use until you set a different one, or is it forgotten when the camera is powered off?
Well, I’m totally confused. First of all, I have a pentax DSLR and so it’s wording is different. I took 14 pictures all at different settings, put them on the computer, duplicated each one, and left one photo with the camera’s setting and hit the auto “enhance” for the duplicated ones, which only seemed to brighten the exposure and left the color or hue alone. I see the difference with the colors on each setting, but still don’t know how to set a “custom white balance.” Does it matter?
Help! And thank you.
Bea
The confusion around white balance is why I shoot in kelvin. I use it based on how I want my mood to appear. If I’m shooting downtown or in an area that’s urban or industrial, I want cooler tones so I set my white balance at about 3400-3700. If I’m shooting something in the woods or need something warm, like at sunset (or during the “golden hour”), I’ll set It to about 4100, and will even go as high at 4300. Canons shoot about 300 degrees cooler than Nikons when in auto white balance. But, if you stick to your numbers in kelvin mode, you’ll always be spot on. it just takes practice knowing what the numbers do. Once you know you can quickly judge a room and know where you need to set your dial in kelvin.
Hope this helps.
Thank you, Donna. I did figure out how to set the numbers in Kelvin, but I didn’t know what they were for. Now I’ll do some experimenting.
Bea