White Balance and Colour Temperature

Understanding White Balance and Colour Temperature

  • White balance is the process of adjusting colours in your image so they appear accurate to the viewer’s eye.
  • It is used to compensate for the different colours of light sources, ensuring that whites in your image are truly white, and not tinted by the colour of the light source.
  • A correct white balance can make a significant difference to your photographs, ensuring they have accurate and pleasing colours.

Colour Temperature

  • The colour of a light source, known as its colour temperature, is measured in Kelvin (K). The scale ranges from warm (red) to cool (blue) colours.
  • The Kelvin scale starts at 1000K (very warm) and can go up to 10000K (very cool). For instance, sunset light is typically around 2000K, while a cloudy day might be about 6500K.
  • Different light sources emit light at different temperatures on the Kelvin scale. For example, incandescent bulbs produce a warmer light around 3200K, while daylight is cooler at around 5600K.
  • Understanding the Kelvin scale and how colour temperature affects your images is essential to creating accurate and appealing photos.

Adjusting White Balance

  • Most digital cameras have automatic white balance (AWB) settings that can generally do a good job of estimating the right white balance for a scene.
  • However, to have more control over the colours in your image, you can manually adjust the white balance setting on your camera.
  • Your camera may have pre-set options for specific lighting conditions such as ‘Daylight’, ‘Cloudy’, and ‘Shade’. These settings adjust the white balance based on typical Kelvin temperatures for these conditions.
  • There also usually is an option to manually set the Kelvin number, allowing you total control over the white balance.

The Importance of Correct White Balance

  • Incorrect white balance can lead to unnatural-looking colours in your photos. For example, in indoor shooting under incandescent light, images may take on a yellowish cast.
  • Although an incorrect white balance can sometimes produce creative effects, for accurate representation of the scene, it’s essential to get the white balance right.
  • Post-processing software allows you to make changes to the white balance in your images during editing, but it’s always best to try and get it right when you take the shot.

By mastering the characteristics of light sources and understanding how to adjust your camera’s settings to achieve balanced and natural colours, you will significantly improve the quality of your photos.