CrazyBusy

Oct. 8, 2007

Photography Tips: White Balance

Posted in Photography Tips and Tricks
DISCLAIMER: I am still in learning mode myself, especially now that I have a new camera (Canon 40D for those who've asked). I have never taken a photography class nor is this my profession. I'm just an enthusiast who has learned a lot by reading and lots of practice. I'd love to share what I've learned with you! Helping you is my motivation for doing this! If you're looking for advice from a professional, there are tons of tutorials out there! End of disclaimer.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS POSTS: At the end of each photography tips post, I will add FAQ's at the bottom as they're asked. So check back here for any white balance questions. For those that wish to participate in the assignments, be sure to add a link to your post at the bottom of this post. Please link directly to your assignment's post- not your main blog address. Also, I think I will change the date on this post to the present date as I update it, so that way it will get "bumped" to the top of my blog. That will alert you to any updates.

In my former life (before children), I was (am) a RN. You may notice a lot of comparisons to anatomy or nursey stuff for this reason. So let's begin with White Balance.

WHITE BALANCE
What is the purpose of white balance? Basically, to keep the whites in your photo white. But when the white balance is off, even the other colors in your photo look off. There is a whole range of color temperatures, measured in Kelvin, that affect photos. The higher temperatures on this scale produce a bluish color and those on the lower end, such as candle light, cast more of an orangish color. If this is not properly corrected by your camera, these color casts will show up in your photos. Have you ever looked at a photo and just knew something was off (color-wise) but couldn't figure out what it was? It could have been a white balance problem.

God is amazing when you think about it- we've been on this earth for nearly 7,000 years and we still don't know everything about the human body, yet He created us in just one day. Can you imagine having just 1% of His intelligence?

Our eyes are amazing organs. No matter what the color temperature is, our eyes see white as white. Go stand outside in the shade. Does your shirt turn blue? What about a candlelit room? Does your white shirt turn orange? No! It still looks white! You could say our eyes are constantly custom white balancing and are perfectly accurate at their job. However, our cameras are not as advanced as the eyes our Creator has given us and need a bit of help.

Most cameras, if not all, have technology that detects these color casts and corrects them for you. It is not perfect though. Your more advanced cameras, higher end point and shoots (P&S's from now on) and DSLRS, come with preset white balance options such as auto, shade, tungsten, cloudy, fluorescent, daylight, flash and custom.

I have found that if you choose the preset closest to the conditions you're in, you will almost always get better results than if you'd left it on auto white balance. The shade and cloudy presets warm up the photos and remove the bluish hue of shaded lighting.  Tungsten cools the photo down by adding some blue, since there is such a strong orange cast under tungsten lighting (regular light bulbs).

The best results I get however, are when I take the time to do a custom white balance. Here's how you do this. First you need an 18% gray card- however, a plain sheet of white paper will work fine for now. You should also consult your camera's manual as some cameras prefer using all white over 18% gray, and some, like my camera, prefer the gray. It has to be 18% gray so be sure to purchase this item at a camera store where these are made just for this purpose.

You will be using this neutral color to show the camera what the color temperature is under your lighting conditions. The camera will use that information to remove color casts. It basically neutralizes your gray back to what gray should look like.

Also, any time your light changes, you should do another custom white balance, and it's a MUST if you're going from one major lighting condition to another- like from outdoors to inside.

Here, let me show you what I mean, using pictures. This is my gray card. My gray card is quite small and collapses and folds up just like those sun shades you put in the dash of your car. Here it is in the front pocket of my camera bag.


Here's my assistant (Millie) holding it so you can see how small it is folded up:


She popped it out & thought it was pretty funny. See, it's not very big:


Doing a custom white balance is really easy & just takes a minute or two once you've got it down. Not all cameras allow you to do a custom white balance, so check to see if yours does before you continue. If yours doesn't hang in there, I have an assignment for you too!

The first thing you do is have your subject hold the gray card where the light will be falling on them. I usually have them tip it up slightly to "catch" a bit of the light falling on them. I also have them hold it in front of their face so that part (skin tone!) is most accurate. You just have them hold it like this:


And then you fill the frame with the gray card. By filling the frame, I mean all you see in the viewfinder is the gray card. I try to make sure none of the black trim around the gray card is in the picture. I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference if some of the black got in there, but I just try to avoid it. The white crosshairs (or whatever you'd call them) on my gray card help the camera to auto focus. Without those, the camera would have a very difficult time figuring out what to focus on since there is no contrast in the photo. Here are some things you can do if your lens is having a hard time focusing on your gray card (if yours doesn't have the crosshairs) or your white sheet of paper. You could temporarily switch your lens to manual focus, take a photo of your gray card, and then switch it back to auto focus. Or, since the picture you take of the gray card does NOT have to be in focus for this to work, you could just snap your pic once you've filled the frame, not worrying about focus. Here is what your picture of the gray card should look like. Can you already see the bluish tint to this?


Now the next thing you will do depends on your camera. Usually though, you will go into your camera's menu screen and find the custom white balance menu item. Once you make that selection, it will have you browse to the photo you want to use as a reference point. And if the last picture you took was of your gray card, it will usually be the first photo that pops up. Choose that photo & hit set or enter. Now don't skip this next step! All you've done so far is tell your camera that WHEN you choose a custom white balance, the photo you chose is what you want to use as a reference point. It won't automatically switch your white balance over to CUSTOM, you have to do that yourself. On my camera, it's a matter of pushing the "white balance" button, and turning the dial until it gets to custom.

So it's 3 steps:
  • take your photo of the gray card while under the light you'll be taking the pictures in (while your camera is in AUTO white balance mode, by the way)
  • choose that photo as your reference point in the custom white balance menu setting
  • switch your white balance mode to CUSTOM (instead of AUTO)

Now that you have that completed (see, that was easy, wasn't it?), it's time to take your photo. Try to keep your exposure the same in each photo.

Now I did this all out of order. I should've done my custom white balance example FIRST and then the other presets, because once you've done your custom white balance and taken that photo, it's really easy to switch to the other white balance modes. But I didn't. So my custom white balance example does not look quite the same as the others since I didn't back up as far as the first set, and that threw my exposure off. But I still think you can see what I'm talking about.

These pictures were taken on a partially cloudy day (the light kept coming and going) in the shade. I had her wear an off-white top so that color cast could be more easily noticed.

I took this one in AUTO WB (white balance). The color is a little flat and do you notice the bluish tint to it?


If you don't see the blue tint, here's a tip. In your photo editing program, bump the saturation up as high as it will go. Your picture will look something like this:

Now do you see the blue in her hair and on her skin? It shouldn't be there.

Here's the next photo taken on the SHADE setting. I think it looks good! Much better than the one on AUTO, that's for sure.


I checked the saturation on this one and it looked like this:


No more blue skin or hair!

This one was taken on the CLOUDY preset. I have to admit, with my old camera, I used this preset A LOT. These pictures were taken with my new camera. I think I like SHADE better than CLOUDY on this camera. The colors aren't as warm. But again, it's nice and better than AUTO.


It was then that I did my custom white balance and then took this shot. It ended up not as well exposed as the others so it's a little difficult to compare.
The color is very rich and warm.

Here are all four, side by side:

Here is the custom after lightening it up a bit so it compares better with the others:

and  SHADE lightened a bit:
I'm actually going back and forth between the two, as to which I like better. I like the warmer colors of the custom white balance but I think that the SHADE preset best represents her coloring.  But one thing I know for sure, AUTO white balance would've been a poor choice.

Next we went inside and took some shots under my "hot light", which has the color temp of about what a tungsten bulb lets off. This time I actually did it in the order I will be recommending. This first one was taken after doing a CUSTOM white balance.


This one was taken on the AUTO setting:


And this one was taken with the TUNGSTEN preset:


Here are all 3 next to each other:


I don't know if you noticed, but with the TUNGSTEN preset, she has a bit too much of a magenta cast to her face, but really it's not bad at all and is pretty close. The AUTO is just awful. The CUSTOM is right about where it should be. No noticeable color casts.

Here are some more I took tonight in the bathroom. I was standing on the "pot" looking down at her, so when I took the picture of the gray card, I had it held out facing up, parallel with the ceiling, since that's how Millie's face was positioned. In other words, I positioned the gray card so that the light was hitting it in the same direction as the light hitting Millie's face. Here's what it looked like (not very gray, is it? in fact, scroll back up to the photo of the gray card from outside & look at the difference in color):


Now on these next 3, my settings were the exact same for each photo since the lighting did not change at all. The only difference between these three was my white balance settings (that and I had to clone in some bubbles on the CUSTOM shot, to cover up some privies). I had to set my ISO to 3200 since the light is very dim in there. I shot in aperture priority mode (my very best favorite mode) and set the exposure compensation to + 1 1/3 (my light meter wants to turn all of that white 18% gray, and I kind of like WHITE bubbles- but I'll save that for the exposure/lighting tutorial). My aperture was 2.8 & shutter speed 1/100. I try not to let my shutter speed drop lower than that otherwise I get blurred photos. This still aren't quite as sharp as I normally like, but....

This one was set to AUTO. Yucky orangish color cast. (my bathtub is supposed to be white)


This one was set to TUNGSTEN. Much better, but do you see that slight magenta color cast?


And this one was set to CUSTOM. It's a tad underexposed despite bumping my exposure compensation up to + 1 1/3, but you can tell the whites are white like they should be.


Here's all 3 side by side:

(added 10-7-07) Another example, using the colors of fall. These next three were taken in AV mode (aperture priority) with the exposure compensation set to + 1/3, aperture of 3.5, shutter speed 1/400 and ISO of 500. It was dark (at 4pm) because the sun was completely obliterated by clouds. I practically ran outside when it briefly stopped raining to take these. I ended up getting sprinkled on for a while anyway. This first one was taken with AUTO WB.

This one was taken with the WB set to CLOUDY:


And this one was taken with the WB set to CUSTOM:


The CLOUDY and CUSTOM pictures are *pretty* close in color. It looks to me like the CUSTOM WB brought out more of the yellow in the leaves. The AUTO has a lot of blue in it. Can you see it? Here are the AUTO and CUSTOM WB shots next to each other:

Another fall leaf comparison. I shot these in manual mode. I set the shutter speed to 1/400, aperture to 3.2 and ISO to 500. The only difference between these shots is the WB setting. This first one was taken in AUTO WB. Again, a lot of blue. The camera wanted to take the warm fall colors and cool them down a little (by adding blue), misinterpreting (because the camera has no brain) that these colors should not be so warm.


This one was taken in the CLOUDY WB preset:


And this one CUSTOM WB (btw, these 2 sets of leaves pictures were taken in 2 different locations, so I took a separate custom WB reading for each set):

Again, the CLOUDY and CUSTOM shots are pretty similar in color. I do see a bit more yellow in the CUSTOM pic, but they both look closer to the colors they really are than the AUTO pic. And in case you can't see the blue cast, here are the AUTO & CUSTOM shots, side by side, along with what they look like after adding +100 saturation underneath those.


By the way, all of these pictures, except for the ones I noted I had "lightened a bit" (and the ones with +100 saturation, of course), came straight out of the camera. No editing at all except to resize, sharpen & frame for the web.

So I hope that you can see that using AUTO white balance it not always your best option. I think AUTO does best when under bright sun or if you're using your flash. But in any other lighting conditions, you should choose the preset that best represents the light. I may add more examples to this later as these aren't as strong as I was hoping to present, but like I said, I'm just learning this new camera.

Now here's your assignment, should you choose to accept it. I would like you to play around with your camera's auto white balance presets. Grab a willing subject (I had to bribe mine with Baskin Robbin's ice cream) so that you have a constant to compare your pictures with. If you don't have a willing child, grab a baby doll or stuffed animal, a coke can- anything. Make sure your subject is wearing at least some white or another light color. DISABLE YOUR FLASH. Now go wild. Put it on CLOUDY under TUNGSTEN lighting. Put it on SHADE under FLUORESCENT lighting. Try all sorts of combinations and post some of your wild and crazy color cast pictures. Whatever combos you want to try. See how that little dial affects your pictures. Just remember which PRESET you chose and the lighting conditions in which you were shooting (shade, tungsten lighting, etc.) and post that info along with your photos. If you forget what settings you used, depending on your camera, your info may be stored in an EXIF file accessible with the software that came with your camera. The EXIF file will save all of your shooting info for each picture.

**If your camera does not allow you to change the white balance presets, you can still participate! Your camera will still pick up color casts, so try this: disable your flash and take pictures of your subject in as many lighting conditions you can: under the lights in the garage, living room, outside in bright sun, outside in the shade, etc. and see if you can pick out the color casts in your photos.**

And now we'll get serious. Choose at least 2 different locations, preferably one outdoors and one indoors and do the following.

  1. First, you must DISABLE YOUR FLASH. If your flash goes off, it will defeat the whole purpose of playing around with white balance. Most cameras are great about getting the white balance right when your flash goes off, because it uses its flash white balance preset automatically.
  2. Next do a custom white balance if you are able to: if not, just skip this step. When you do a custom white balance, make sure your white balance is set to AUTO when you take your picture of the gray card or white paper. Follow the steps outlined above, and then take a picture of your subject.
  3. Keeping your subject in the same position and hopefully with the same exposure and amount of light, take a picture of them with the PRESET that closely matches your lighting conditions.
  4. Now take a picture with the white balance set to AUTO.
  5. Find another location and repeat, making sure to do another custom white balance under the new lighting conditions.
  6. Post your results! Add the link to your post to this Mister Linky thing below and be sure to visit others' sites to see their results!


I also wanted to add that you CAN fix color casts in post-processing (i.e. Photoshop or whatever photo editing software you use). Sometimes the color cast is so severe though that it's impossible to make it look right, and those usually end up in the recycle bin. When photos are a little cool (bluish), that's a pretty easy fix. You just add a little yellow in color balance (what I do) or you could use a warming filter, but I've never had great results with that. But it's always best to try and get it right in the camera FIRST.

I am looking forward to seeing your results! Hope that was helpful.

FAQ's:
Q: I'm trying to play with my white balance and for some reason when I switch to auto, take the picture of my gray card, switch to custom it isn't giving me an option to choose a picture.... any ideas? Is it possible it's automatically using the last picture I took without me choosing it?

A: I don't think your camera will automatically choose your picture. I think you're missing a step. There are two things you have to do to use custom white balance. After taking a pic of your gray card, the first thing you have to do is go into your camera's MENU SCREEN (on mine I hit the menu button and scroll over a page in the menu screen to "Custom WB". This is the step that you choose the picture you want your camera to use as a reference point. After this step, you then go to the WB BUTTON on the top of your camera (or wherever yours is located), push that & then turn the dial to CUSTOM white balance. This last step is the same as when you change your WB from CUSTOM back to AUTO or TUNGSTEN, etc. Does that help?

Q: Do you happen to have this in a Word document?

A: I do now! Just for my buddy RaShell. (well, and anyone else who'd like a copy!) I should have written it up that way in the first place. I also converted it to PDF in case that's more convenient. Just keep in mind this post may get updated (I've already edited it 1,482 times) and I probably won't remember to update these 2 files & reupload them. But I'll try. And they aren't pretty (formatting, etc.) but Word and Acrobat are not my thing. Word drives me nuts. I can never figure out how to format things correctly in Word.
Please someone let me know if these links don't work and I'll see what I can do. I tested them & they work for me, but I'm wondering if it's a one time download link?
Alyssa's White Balance Tutorial (WORD- 11.09 MB)
Alyssa's White Balance Tutorial (PDF- 2.14 MB)


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Comments

Oct. 6, 2007 - Cool phtography lesson

Posted by seasonsmom
Thanks so much for posting all this. I can't wait to try and play with my Canon. There is so much to learn and so little time! You are encouraging me to learn something I really like. I need to play with it before the tea party cuz last nite the camera just didn't want to take a pic on any setting of my dd blowing out the candle. Those are memories! They are important and not to be missed! Thanks so much again!
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Oct. 6, 2007 - <i>Untitled Comment</i>

Posted by 40winkzzz
I'm going to do this, altho' knowing me, it might be a couple weeks before I actually get anything up on my blog. WB is one of those things that I (prior to reading your post) knew nothing about, and have been too, um, lazy or apathetic or busy (or something) to read about. I do remember that when researching cameras, I read several reviewer comments saying that my camera does NOT have good auto-WB. I haven't noticed, but I'll start being more aware of it now, I bet.

In addition to doing these experiments, I have another new toy I have to learn about as well. Not directly related to photography, but a nice complement. I plan to post about it today or tomorrow.

Edited by 40winkzzz on Oct. 6, 2007 at 4:30 PM
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Oct. 6, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by mamabear2003
Thanks for the prayer and the photo tips. I'm excited to play around with my camera.
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Oct. 6, 2007 - Question...

Posted by Jennifer Harbour
YAY! Our first photo lesson! Thank you for doing this Alyssa! I haven't been here in awhile, glad I caught your first photo lesson blog! hehe

Okay, so I'm trying to play with my white balance and for some reason when I switch to auto, take the picture of my gray card, switch to custom it isn't giving me an option to choose a picture.... any ideas?? Is it possible it's automatically using the last picture I took without me choosing it?? ....
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Oct. 8, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by mama2girls1boy
Cool!
Our first assignment. I'll try to snap some photos tomorrow.
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Oct. 8, 2007 - Thank you!

Posted by Anonymous
I was just wondering today if you had any new tips on your blog. It's been a few days since I've checked in. What a wonderful surprise! :)

Okay, I need to try all this. This looks like fun. I need to do something new with my camera.

I took the children to the park for almost 2 hours today and took pictures the whole time. It was a very nice break from a hectic time in our lives. :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I am so excited!

-RaShell
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Oct. 8, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by jenefork
Cool photography lesson! I need to read it again and study it some more. I have a Canon Rebel xt and I'm going to play with it soon and see if I can take cool pictures. :) Thank you for sharing the information to help me and others to take better pictures. :)
Jenelle
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Oct. 9, 2007 - Hi there....

Posted by Anonymous
It's Juliestew.... I was shooting in shade. I'll make the corrections you offered and post again today so look for some more photos a little later on today. I'll link again to your post.
IN HIM,
julie
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Oct. 9, 2007 - Okay,

Posted by Juliestew
Go check out my indoor photos here
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Juliestew/404578/
Let me know what you think. Also, what program do you use to upload your photos. I like the black border and the way you can put two or three together.
Julie
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Oct. 9, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by crazy4cherries
wow thats long! I tagged you!
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Oct. 9, 2007 - terrific

Posted by momtofive
wow, this is incredible. I feel like a child who is learning that all letters make up words! I had no idea what this white balance thing was.
I took out my rather cheap digital camera and I couldn't find a setting for that, but I will experiment with the lighting.
I just couldn't believe how much of a difference it made.
Thank you, thank you for lesson 1.
Tori
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Oct. 10, 2007 - I did it!

Posted by Anonymous
Alyssa-

You will be so proud of me! I did the white balance assignment and I learned so much! I "made" my gray card (going to have to get one of those!!!) and had fun. I even had willing subjects at least for the first time. We'll see how willing they are after 20 times! :)

Still have big blog issues so I can't post my work. I put them into a word document and I was going to get it to you that way, but it's 21 MB! Yikes! I don't know how to convert it to PDF. Do I have to buy a program to save it as a PDF? I am so computer challenged! :(

Anyway, thank you so much. I am having an absolute blast with this white balance stuff. Thank you for your time. You are such a doll!

-RaShell
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Oct. 12, 2007 - i have a question

Posted by Juliestew
how do you sharpen your photo for the web? what does it do? and why?
thanks so much (i have photoshop elements)
julie
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Oct. 12, 2007 - THANK YOU!!

Posted by Jennifer H
Thank you for putting this in a word doc!!! What a great idea!! I find myself coming to your site for any missed steps & now I can just print it out & have it right there with me while I take my pics! w00t!! :)
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Oct. 13, 2007 - Awesome Photos

Posted by teachermom2boys
WOW! Your kids are precious and your picture taking is wonderful! I really enjoyed looking at them. Thanks for all the great tips!!! When I have more time, I am going to take down some notes. Skimming through them gave me lots of info. The bathtub one is unique!!!!
Have a great week!
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Oct. 15, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by crazybusy
Thanks ladies, for your interest and actually reading that long ol' post! :)

Love, Alyssa
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Dec. 13, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by momtofive
Alyssa,
Hope you are still feeling well. I have a question for you. I've given up on our digital camera...it's too slow and hard to focus. I find I have to take 5 pictures to get one good one. Sooo...I've been searching for about three weeks for a new camera to buy. I looked up all the specifications on the one you have, but it is more than I can spend monetarily.
If you were going to get a camera for under $500, what would you look for? Are you sold on Canon as a brand or just certain features?
I know you're right in the middle of the holiday seasons, but I would sure appreciate your opinion. If possible, I want to get this new camera before Christmas.
Thank you so much -
Tori
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Me? I'm a Christian, homeschooling, photography-loving SAHM. Married- 16 years, to the best. Children- ages 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 1.

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