White balance choices - part 2

How white balance affects an image

It was a perfectly clear day up near Brackendale and the sun was shining brightly.  I was traipsing around in the woods with my camera and came across a creek. The sun did not penetrate the bush above me; only the light from the open blue sky made it through.  I thought I would take a photo of the creek for fun.  The camera's white balance was set to "auto".  When I pressed "play" after taking the shot the rear display clearly presented a blue image, the one one the left.  I was shocked by the result.

My eyes did not detect the intense blue shade associated with the ice and snow.  There was some neural processing going on which prevented me from seeing the extent of the colour cast.  I then decided to use the camera's "manual white balance" option.  This is a feature most digital cameras have.  It is a little complicated to do it the first time, and referring to your manual or watching a short video on it is not a bad idea if you want to try it. 

After setting the camera's white balance to "custom" I had to tell the camera what white looked like.  I found a patch of snow in the same light and followed the procedure.  Then I took another shot of the same scene previously attempted.  After pushing play and viewing both images I clearly saw the difference between the two.

There are several options for managing white balance.  Most people leave their camera set to full automatic, which means that everything is done for them automatically.  This includes things like exposure, flash, ISO, file type, and white balance.  While capable of producing good photos, there tends to be a few things lacking; one of those things is often an accurate white balance.

The next thing step some people will take is to use a program like Photoshop Elements to adjust the white balance.  There is actually a very good utility present, Colour Cast, which allows you to improve a photo's white balance.  The up side is that the photo improves.  The down side is that it is done at the expense of data.  However, most would agree that the difference to the average person is not significant and are happy with the result.

The two best options involve going a step further.  The first one was done in the above photo the right.  The user is not on full automatic but rather on a semi-automatic or even manual exposure mode and chooses custom white balance.  Then, after setting it using the prescribed procedure, shoots the photos in that environment.  When doing many shots in the same lighting situation I will often select this option.  It always produces good results.  Then, for the final method, there is the RAW option.

RAW is a shooting mode that saves the digital file as a RAW image.  There are a host of pros and some cons for this, but for the moment we will address white balance.  RAW settings let you adjust the white balance for the image after it has been taken.  You could take 1000 shots, in each one the white balance could be different, and you could get the correct white balance for each one while you are sitting at your computer instead of having to do it, very inconveniently, in the field before each shot.  This is the way I do 95% of my images.  I don't always get the perfect white balance, but I certainly come close.  And, it turns out, to be closer than what the camera estimated on its own.

How you work with white balance is up to you.  I would encourage you to play with custom white balance.  Refer to your manual or go on line and type in the camera model and "setting custom white balance" and hit return.  You should be able to find something which helps you along the way.