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WHITE

BALANCE:
Not a racial concept...

Photography and Text


© 2008 Michael Lustbader

I have to chuckle when I read one


pundit or another hold forth on the
“new” concept of “White Balance in
Digital Photography”. White balance is,
of course, not a new concept at all, but
one that photographers have been
dealing with, in one way or another,
since the invention of color film.
Whenever you placed a UV, 1A, or 81
series filter in front of your lens, you
were dealing with white balance.
When you loaded a roll of tungsten
film in your camera instead of daylight
film because you planned to shoot
indoors without a flash, you were
dealing with white balance. When you
put an FD-L filter on your lens to
photograph under fluorescent lights,
you were dealing with white balance.
So, what does it all mean?

Light, as well as Benetton, comes in


different colors. It can appear blue, like
the fog of an overcast morning on the
Oregon coast, red, like sunset reflected
off Navajo sandstone, or bright white,
ABOVE: In this photograph of a crab spider on datura, there
like noon at the beach. Without going
are three different whites. All three have different casts, but I
wanted them to be as neutral as possible, neither particularly into a full-fledged physics lesson, the
warm nor cold. color of light is measured in degrees
Kelvin (written as K, not °K). Think of
UPPER RIGHT: Green tree frog taking refuge in iris. A
“cool-toned” image.
WHITE BALANCE 2

it as relating to the color of iron as it is heated, starting from


dull red and ranging to white. (Think of “white-hot” rather
than ice to describe “white”, and you’ll be OK). Approximate Color
Temperature for Common
Ambient light (the natural, available light of your Lighting Situations:
surroundings) influences the apparent color of the object
upon which it falls, adding a color cast as it is reflected. 2000K Sunrise
(Remember, we “see” things by the light that they reflect).
Why then, when we take our yellow beach ball inside, does it 2500–3000K Incandescent
appear to be the same color yellow that it did in the bright, (indoor)
glaring light at the beach? Our eyes contain light-sensitive tungsten
lighting
receptors called “cones” that receive and transmit color
signals from the eye to the brain. We possess three types of 3300K Photofloods
color receptors, red, green, and blue. (As in RGB. Isn’t that a
coincidence?) In our brains, color signals are interpreted in 4000K Fluorescent
the context of experience, and color casts are essentially lighting
neutralized. This process allows our eyes to adapt to the 5000–5600K Daylight,
particular color of the light in which we view our subject. Electronic
Our brain, in a sense, lies to us and tells us that white is flash
white, gray is gray, black is black, and flesh tones are
“appropriate” regardless of the color temperature of the 6000K Bright sunlight
ambient light. The yellow ball appears to be the same shade 7000K Slightly
of yellow, whether we see it in our living room or at the overcast skies
beach, because our eyes and brain work together fool us into
thinking that it is so. Your camera, however, has no such 9000K Bright shade
adaptive mechanism. It simply records what it sees. If you
10,000K Heavy
take a photograph (an “objective” recording) of a scene, overcast
person, or object in different lighting, that subject will reflect
the actual color of light with which it is lit.

A sleepy butterfly
photographed in warm sunrise
light in the Texas hill country.

The image on the left is how


the butterfly truly appeared;
the right hand image is more
neutral, rendered by the
camera’s AUTO setting. When
I brought over the file in Adobe
Camera Raw, I made sure to
use the AS SHOT setting, not
the AUTO setting in the
WHITE BALANCE dialog
box.
WHITE BALANCE 3

Hence, Aunt Martha’s face photographed at sunset, instead of appearing pale and rather
sickly white, as you and I know it truly is, will appear ruddy orange. Under fluorescent
lighting, she may very well have a greenish tinge. Since Aunt Martha is known to be very
vain and quite capable of holding a grudge for 30 years (just ask Uncle Fred), we must make
sure that, if the color cast cannot be not downright flattering, it is at least accurate. Then we
can fall back on, “well, you know that the camera doesn’t lie…” and hope to be off the hook
and not cut out of the will. How do we accomplish this? Well, we used to do it with filters
and different types of film. In the digital age, we spin the wheels, push the buttons, and
follow the blinking lights until we find the “WHITE BALANCE” menu.
Generally, most digital cameras will give you a menu of choices for White Balance, usually including:
DAYLIGHT CLOUDY
FLASH SHADE
TUNGSTEN FLUORESCENT
AUTO CUSTOM

The greatest advantage of digital capture over traditional film-based photography in almost
all aspects is the increase in process control. Instead of placing more slabs of glass over the
lens and between the subject and the recording medium (and theoretically degrading
resolution with each…), we can make adjustments to eliminate many color casts right in-
camera. In fact, we must do so to avoid color aberrations, which may be quite unpleasant.
(Think of Aunt Martha’s green face).

These are self-explanatory and work fairly well at least 85% of the time. Simply judge the
type of light in which you are working and change the settings accordingly. “Well”, you say,
“What if the sky is cloudy-bright? What if it is very dark, (because I like to photograph
tornados)? What if I am photographing underwater?” What if…?
You’re absolutely correct. The generic settings cannot cover all contingencies. But don’t panic
yet. Your camera manufacturer has not abandoned you, and you still have other options.

A mixture of cool and warm


tones, this leaf on a lichen-
clad rock was photographed as
a RAW image, and converted
in Camera Raw, using the AS
SHOT setting. I then used a
Selective Color adjustment
layer to give a little boost to
the reds and yellows, without
effecting the cooler tones.
WHITE BALANCE 4

If your approach is to be totally uninvolved with the photographic process, there is usually an
AUTO setting that works surprisingly well in most situations. The camera uses logarithms
based upon meter readings to choose what it considers to be an “appropriate” white balance
setting. You will notice, however, that many of the better (more expensive) cameras will also
provide you with a CUSTOM setting. This allows you to tweak the preset color balance
numbers provided by the manufacturers of your camera. Each camera is a bit different in the
mechanism by which it accomplishes this, but basically, you are asked to photograph a subject
that you know is neutral (a white or gray card that supposedly has no color cast) under the
lighting conditions in which you are shooting. The camera will then calculate a setting for you,
which neutralizes whichever color cast happens to be present.

Left: Cool rendition

Right: Warmer
rendition.

The actual scene


actually fell
somewhere between
these two.

In addition, some more advanced cameras will even show you an actual Kelvin scale that you
can then tweak by the numbers. (As if you could tell the difference between 5600K and 5850K,
right?) The downside of having this degree of control is, of course, that you had better
remember to reset the white balance when you move to a different set of lighting conditions.

“Hey, you just said that the AUTO setting works well,” you whine, “why not just use it all the
time and avoid all the aggravation?” “Well”, I reply calmly, “suppose you WANT a color cast?
After all, the purpose of photographing the sand dunes at sunset is to capture that golden light
flowing over the sand ripples, right?” You don’t really want to neutralize all color casts. In
those situations, many photographers simply use the LCD preview and bracket WB (White
Balance) adjustments.

There is a way you can avoid all the hassle of white balance selection and maintain optimal
quality and control. We will deal with that in the next blog, “Shooting in the RAW”.

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