This is another post I have basically copied from TBW. White balance is something that can make or break your photo. Some of you may be wondering.....what IS white balance? Simply put, white balance is the term used for the process of compensating for the color tone or temperature of light. All light has a temperature (warm or cool) that will impart a color tone to it. Our eyes naturally compensate for this and as a result we perceive light to be colorless. A camera sensor, on the other hand, does not do this....and as a result you will often get color-casts in your photos. In most digital cameras AWB (auto-white balance) will try to estimate the temperature of the light and compensate for it. It is kind of like shooting in Auto mode....which will guess the best exposure settings, but as with auto shooting mode many times AWB doesn't guess the way you want it too. So, while AWB works well sometimes, there will also be many times when it will lead you astray.
If you are shooting in RAW you can feel free to leave you white balance set to AWB b/c you have a lot of flexibility in correcting color issues in whatever raw file converter you use, or for the sake of consistency you can pick one of the below WB settings. I shoot in RAW about 50% of the time, but often I stick with JPEG b/c the files are smaller. So, when shooting JPEG I really try to get a good custom white balance reading from the start. Mild color casts can be dealt with in post processing, but if you have a really bad color cast it can take a lot of time to try to "fix" it in pp and sometimes you can't ever get the colors looking completely right.
So, IMO it is well worth taking some time to learn about the white balance settings available on your camera, and to experiment with them. One of many wonderful things about digital photography is that you can change all of your settings on the fly while you are shooting. So you can easily experiment with all of these settings and decide which ones work best in which situations. If you learn how to manually set your white balance, or learn which modes work best in certain lighting situations your colors will be more natural and realistic looking. I would challenge all photographers to get out there and experiment with WB settings. Once you start thinking about it you will train your eyes to SEE color casts when you look at your photos on your computer. As I said above, our eyes naturally compensate for color casts so you really have to learn to see them. I often see a lot of photos online that are either too cool (blue cast) or too warm (yellow or red cast) that can be easliy adjusted in photoshop.
Most digital cameras have several white balance settings you can choose from to compensate for the lighting you are shooting in. I have listed the modes found on most digital cameras. Auto: in this mode the camera analyzes the color of light reaching the sensor and then guesses the best way to compensate for it. If you don't understand anything about white balance this is probably the best mode to use. However, once you learn more about white balance you will see that often the camera guesses wrong and you are often left with unnatural colors or color casts. An exception is if you shoot in RAW, you can feel free to use this mode b/c you can make white balance adjustments later on in pp. Daylight: If you are shooting outdoors in sunny conditions than you may want to try switching to this mode. It will balance the colors of the light using the temperature of sunlight as its baseline. Shade: Shady conditions will most often produce a blue bast into your photos. The shade setting therefor acts like a warming filter that will balance out the coolness of the light. Tungsten/Incandescent: When you take photos in indoor lighting w/o a flash there will be a yellowish cast to your photos. This setting will balance that out by adding more blue to your photo Cloudy: This setting will add warmth to a photo shot in cloudy conditions, which produces cool light. Fluorescent: If you are shooting in commercial locations that use fluorescent lighting it will tend to add a green cast to your photos. This setting will balance that out. Flash: If you are forced to use your flash indoors, you may want to try this white balance setting. Your flash will impart a bluish cast onto your subject and this setting will balance that out by adding warmth to your photo. If you are outdoors, however, and using your flash for fill flash you may want to try the daylight setting b/c the flash setting may end up adding too much warmth. But, really you may want to try out both to see which one you prefer. Custom: This setting allows you to determine how your camera will balance the temperature and color tone of the light by taking a reading from a white point (piece of white paper, white card, expodisc, white sock, white wall, anything white) and then using that as your baseline. If the setting is taken properly your photos will have more consistent and realistic colors. One thing you have to remember when doing custom white balance is that anytime the light changes........you have to take a new reading!
Melissa
Great post Melissa =)
-Stephenie
Shooting with a Nikon D300 + D50, 28mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.4 and hopefully 70-200 2.8 on the way =)
Visit My Website