How To Wednesday: White Balance

(This post is delayed due to server problems beyond our control — thank you for understanding)

Today we’re gonna talk about White Balance.

What’s white balance, you ask? Well … in the layman’s definition, it is when your images are too warm or too cool in temperature — or a color cast. People either look a bit too jaundiced or sickly/lacking oxygen due to the color temperature your camera is shooting in.

Last night — at a late enough hour that locating and procuring an assistant that would help me in better demonstrating this  – I went to plan B on how to explain how to set the White Balance on your point and shoot camera while in either Digital Macro or Digital Manual modes. Mine’s a Canon Powershot/ELPH, so the menus may very on most cameras, but the basic options should be there:

This is what mine looks like when you turn it on — for purposes of this example, pay attention to the color of the blurred woodgrain the camera is ‘focused’ on.

To get to the white balance menur, click the ‘func / set’ button to the right of the screen … then scroll down to what most likely is labeled ‘AWB’ (its typically the default function unless you or someone else has changed it!)

Auto White Balance — aka you’re letting the camera ‘think’ for you on this. Typically works best in all settings, but every once in a while it won’t. In this case, AWB shows the woodgrain at the actual color it really is.

Daylight — note how the blurred woodgrain is brighter/warmer. This setting you don’t want to use indoors … it has a bit of a yellow cast to it.

Cloudy — while not as warm as the Daylight setting, the blurred woodgrain is warmer than it actually is in person.

Tungsten — best for indoors due to the color temperature most lightbulbs put out. The blurred woodgrain is nearly identical in color tone to the AWB option. Don’t use this option outdoors, it’s too cool (color temperature-wise)  unless you just happen to be in a really snowy and bright/glare location.

Fluorescent — best for when you have fluorescent lighting to deal with. I’ve personally never used this option.

Fluorescent High — again note the orange color cast it gives the woodgrain.

Custom — when none of the other options display the color temperature accurately, this option allows you to set the white balance yourself. I’ve never used this function on a P&S (only the DSLR), but it works in the same way. Sometimes AWB and the other modes just don’t display it correctly and unless you have photo editing software to ‘fix’ the color cast, this is the best route to go if you’re wanting to use the image to gift to others, for your holiday cards, or to submit to a photo contest.