1/15/2012

What Is the White Balance Setting on my Digicam?

By James Helmering


Have you ever taken an image of a stunning winter scene and been disappointed to discover the crisp, white snow came out with a bluish hint? This is the type of situation your digital camera's white balance is meant to stop.

The white balance is a sensor that investigates the lighting conditions and colors of a scene and adjusts so that the white in the picture appears white. This helps insure the other colors appear as natural as practicable. This is one advantage digital photography has over convention film. With film, you buy with a certain lighting condition under consideration. If that changes, you want to either change your film or hope that you can fix any errors in post-production.

Most digital cameras allow you to use either automatic white balance or select between a few preset conditions such as full sun, clouded day and that kind of stuff. Automated white balance will work in most conditions. There may be times, however when you want to "warm" up a picture to improve the color, eg for portraits or sunsets. The best way to try this is set your camera's white balance to "cloudy". This could deepen the colors and add a glowing quality to portraits. It will take a beautiful sunset and enhance it to the point of awesome.

Practice taking the same photo with different white balance settings to get a feel for the changes each setting evokes. Keep notes until you've got a good idea of what each setting does. In time, you may come to instantly sense which setting is the best for your own situation.

White balance is a little setting that can make huge changes in your finished photos. Make it your buddy and you will not have to stress about faded sunsets, blue snow, or having to do hours of portrait editing to be sure the picture turns out.




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