White balance is the way we gauge and establish the colour of an image. White balance means the "all over" colour tone itself. Colour tone is the broad colour that’s spread right over the entire picture. When you take a photo in the house, with no direct flash, you will sometimes notice a blue colour tone spread over the photo. This is your white balance.
Getting correct white balance is one of the most important factors of photography. When you have the correct white balance you will see that colours look true to life.. Skin tones look real also, instead of looking fake or too yellow. Correct white balance becomes a really central element of portrait photography for this reason.
How do we find the most correct white balance we can? First we need to comprehend that there is no one set white balance for every situation. Each white balance feature on your camera, like Tungsten for instance, is not correct for every occasion. Tungsten makes your photos look quite blue if they are photographed in normal light. When you photograph a subject that is under yellow lights it can make your subject appear too yellow. Photographing in Tungsten will eliminate the influence of yellow and help take your photograph back to a usual colour tone again.
Automatic white balance is the general selection for most newbie photography enthusiasts. This is fine as long as you fine-tune your white balance in Photoshop or Lightroom afterward. You will discover that if you shoot in auto white balance on a regular basis, your photography just won’t look very nice. You might find that your pictures just don’t replicate the proper colours that you see with your naked eye.
Shade and cloudy white balance are two favourites if you want to “warm up” your shots. They present a warm colour cast such as yellow, to overlay onto your pictures. This can be a great shooting feature particularly at twilight or sunrise. Shade and cloudy white balance can highlight the vibrancy in your warmer colours. This allows sunsets and sunrises to appear energetic. This is a nice option for sunrises.
Shade and cloudy white balance settings are not suitable for photographing people. The last thing we wish for in our wedding and portrait images is a yellow hue over a photo of the bride and groom. Tungsten is not correct either. We certainly do not need the bride and groom appearing too blue. Auto white balance doesn’t always succeed for portraits because of the way the digital camera is made. The digital camera you own does not naturally comprehend what colours should look like. When you choose auto white balance you give the digital camera free reign to do as it wants. This does not work well when you want true to life vibrancy.
True to life colour is dependent on “training” the camera to recognize colour. This is where custom white balance has advantages. When you level a grey card at the front of the camera and set your custom white balance to it, it then understands what’s happening. It then sets all colour either side of that grey tone. It’s quite difficult how it does this. As a photographer all you need to understand is that colour needs to be true, and a grey card is the means to do it.
Basically modify your white balance mode to custom. Then photograph a grey card with the correct exposure. Then it’s important to “set” the custom white balance from that photo. You will notice that for that precise photo session, your colours come to life. You’ll be able to see finer colours like light pink, magenta and lemon yellow as they really are.
White balance is one of the primary things to producing a striking photograph. If you follow these easy actions, no longer will you feel baffled about why you are not getting correct colour. It will truly transform the way you look at photography forever.
This colours you see are enhanced using a grey card and custom white balance. I've increased the vibrancy in Photoshop a little, but mainly kept everything looking natural.
To learn more just come and see me at www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com
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