Arts and Photography tips and guide

How it Works

White balance is used to adjust colors to match the color of the light source. Hopefully, this is so that white objects appear white. But, with subjects lit by a number of different light sources and viewed by the naked eye, white balance settings can be difficult to determine.

The image sensor in a digital camera will reproduce these color differences just as they are, with the result that without additional processing the color of the photograph would appear to change according to the light source. To rebuild the color image that is on the sensor, the camera requires white balance information in order to reset. Often, presets can be used to make this process easier.

Typical white balance presets include daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, and flash. By choosing the appropriate setting for your shooting conditions, the camera will do the hard work of making white objects appear white. When the light from the image hits the camera, it passes through the lens, then into the camera body, and then passes through a RGB filter above the sensor in order to activate the image sensor.

Considerations

Too often, we as digital photographers seek ways to do the correct to perfection, while forgetting that we are artists. Please do not try to place limitations on yourself or other artists. Photography has many aspects, some are distinctly technical, while others are the fun and artistic.

What I learned over a long period of trail and error is that using your own discretion is invaluable. The reason is that the color temperature may not be the same throughout the image. The image white balance will change in the areas filled with direct sunlight, but it will be different in the shadow areas or those with artificial light. Which of these areas will become the right sampling area?

For those thinking that relying on post processing will handle the problem, think again. If the white balance setting had only one variable (slider), then it will be easy for us to find the right value by moving the slider in the editing software left and right until one find the right position. But, white balance adjustments rarely have only one setting! That makes it nearly impossible to adjust white balance using trail and error, and why it's so important to practice adjusting or setting the white balance correctly.

The Overall Feel

When we look at a white object, our eyes will automatically adjust to the lighting conditions, so that the object appears perfectly white to us whether we are indoors or out in the bright sunlight. While our eyes are excellent at making this adjustment, digital cameras aren't, and the same object will appear different depending on the color of light in the scene (something known as the "color temperature"). This can leave our photos with a blue (cool) or orange (warm) tint.

White balance is the process of giving our camera a helping hand, so that it can reproduce the whites in our photo as they should be. Once it gets the white right, all the other colours in the scene fall into place, and we're left with an image that perfectly reproduces what our eyes saw. White balance can make the difference between a dull looking "digital" picture or an image that really jumps at you when looking at it, so it's worth the time to get it as close to "right" as possible.

See how other photographers are experimenting with their photography on our camera blog. For more details on equipment, visit us there!

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