What is White?

White balance is essentially a corrective procedure in adjusting colors in photographs to ensure that scenes are as neutral as possible. That would mean making sure that white areas are actually white.

Technically speaking, the most important aspect of white balance correction is to make sure certain reference areas of the scene is neutral, so it doesn’t always have to involve the color white per se. In short, a scene filled with colored hues without a single shade of white can still be neutralized and rendered in its correct, real-life color hues.

The white balance scale is based on the thermodynamic scale of Kelvin ratings. The lower the value, the “warmer” or “redder” the scene is rendered, while a high Kelvin setting would mean the scene is “cooler” or “bluer”.

Candlelit scenes – < 2000 K
Household incandescent (tungsten) Lights – 2000-3000K
Early sunrise or late sunset – 3000-4000K
Older fluorescent and mercury lamps – 4000-5000 K
Most studio strobes and camera flash – 5000-5500K
Newer energy-saving, daylight-balanced compact fluorescent lamps – 5500-6000K
Cloudless bright, sunny afternoon – 5000-6500 K
Typical overcast and cloudy sky with sunlight – 6500-7500K
Open shade, thick cloudy skies – >8500K

It seems daunting to memorize the scale in our day-to-day shooting, and it could be. However, most camera manufacturers include a built-in white balance meter sensor into our cameras including presets that approximate the scenario we’re shooting. Most cameras will have the following presets, listed from “coolest” to “warmest” color temperature (with the usual graphic indicator).

Different camera manufacturers may label these presets differently, so please refer to your camera’s user manual for specific information about these presets.

Remember that the camera presets are there to neutralize the colors of the scene. If you chose “Tungsten”, for example, it doesn’t turn your image’s color cast warmer, but it neutralizes the warm scene to a cooler scene. Conversely, if you chose a cooler WB preset like “Fluorescent”, the camera doesn’t add a blue tinge to your image, it neutralizes the cool tones in the scene by adding a warm tone instead.

The presets apply a color cast opposite the actual color cast on the scene to neutralize the scene.

Human eyes are incredible in deciphering colors and our brain has also helped us know instinctively if something is a certain color regardless of lighting condition. For example, if we pick up a piece of paper, we know that piece of paper is white whether we’re standing under the sun or underneath an orange street lamp.

Cameras, however, are not as smart as humans are. If you place the same piece of white paper in five different lighting conditions, it will come out as five different shades of white in our photographs. The camera doesn’t have a ability to neutralize color casts automatically and accurately in all lighting conditions.

Daylit Scenes

Here we have a pretty neutral scene with a neutral subject in Figure 2. A glossy white laptop on an off-white paper above a neutral gray cement floor.

Using Auto WB setting, the camera nails the WB perfectly with no hint of out-of-place color cast on the laptop and the ground.

The photograph was in an open shade around 3PM, which is pretty bright and “white” in terms of the light’s color. In most daylit scenes a few hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset, the camera’s automatic white balance meter does a pretty accurate job in most cases.

We can easily mimic a late afternoon light by switching the white balance to “Shade” or “Cloudy”. The fact that the actual light condition still falls within what our eyes think is “white”, the slightly warm glow is still an acceptable exposure.

Artificial Lighting Conditions

Let’s introduce some artificial incandecent (tungsten) light just like we often experience indoors especially in our homes or restaurant lighting.

Figure 4 shows us a common spotlight incandecent bulb.In many cameras, auto white balance will not be able correct the strong orange cast by the incandecent lights, and will often treat the scene as daylit, using a setting close to the “Daylight” preset of the camera. The result would yeild a real reddish hue, as shown in Figure 5. Technically, this is acceptable if you want to induce a warm feeling to the photograph, but it’s doesn’t depict the real color of the subject.

Remember that setting a white balance on the camera means you’re correcting the actual color cast in the scene. The opposite of the red spectrum would be the blue spectrum, so the camera “cools” down the image and mixes some green and magenta to arrive to “neutral” image. By switching our camera’s white balance setting to “Tungsten”, the camera removes all red color cast in the image and we now have a photograph that depicts the subject’s color accurately (Figure 6).

Mood and White Balance

Now that we’ve seen how to use the presets to correct white balance, we have to understand that “correct” and “accurate” may not be the best color temperature for our image if we have a certain intent or mood that we want to achieve.

With Figure 7, our main goal is to accentuate the colors of the candies. If we use an “accurate” white balance, in this case “Shade” preset (because the photo was taken in a shady area on a late afternoon), the colors are not as emphasized since the white tray and white board where the candies are placed are casting a slight orange hue.

By using a cooler white balance preset, in this case “Daylight”, we were able to take out the warm sunlight hue and just made the candies pop as the tray and board became a non-factor in our overall image.

In Figure 8 shows the opposite. The photo was taken at around 4PM, at least 3 hours from sunset. The correct white balance made sure that the scene is neutral, the white teacup is white, the silvery gray metal gate is silvery gray. However, the image looks stale and not inviting. By changing our white balance to a warmer “Shade”, our image is now a lot warmer and it turns our image into a moody, relaxing afternoon scene.

Mixed Lighting Conditions

With mixed lighting condition scenes, the camera will have a harder time striking a balance between the different color temperatures in a scene, so we, the photographers, have to make the creative decision to choose which color cast should be neutralized in a scene.

Figure 9 and 10 are identical, however, Figure 9 uses Auto WB and the camera used the large span of gray and white sky and neutralized that area. Notice that the warm artificial light tube’s (upper right corner) color cast is exaggerated further.

In Figure 10, we manually picked to neutralize the warm light tube and chose the “Tungsten” WB preset. The result clearly shows that the encircled area is well neutralized but the whole outdoor area turned blue.

The reason is that we shifted the whole color spectrum “cooler” to accommodate the warm light, so the previously neutral outdoor areas of the image are now pulled towards the blue spectrum.

To summarize, in most situations, we should concentrate on achieving accurate color reproduction as possible. We must keep in mind, however, that there are scenes that simply appear much better with “moody” colors than accurate colors. Just like metering for exposure, the correct settings would be ideal for most photographs, but adding little adjustments from the correct settings can turn a purely technical photograph into a personal creative artwork.

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