Best White Balance Settings: How to Improve Your Photos Now
Perfect white balance showcasing low cloud and mountain peaks, South Georgia Island.
White balance is of critical importance to aspiring photographers. Here’s what I’ve learned about white balance and how it can improve your photos right now.
White balance is a feature built into digital cameras that allows the photographer to achieve accurate color rendition by neutralizing the color of light reaching the sensor. White balance is also used to warm or cool an image for visual impact or heightened emotion.
As you work your way through this guide you'll gain an appreciation for the changing color of light in the world around you. You’ll also learn how the white balance settings on your camera allow you to control the color of the light reaching your camera’s sensor.
With this knowledge you’ll be able to neutralize the color of the light to achieve accurate color rendition, a critical concern in a lot of portrait, still life and food based photography.
Likewise, you’ll be able to subtly shift the color balance of an image to enhance mood or, alternatively, to embrace strong colored light to enhance the emotional impact of the image in question.
Table of Contents:
White Balance Photography
Here’s a mantra, worth repeating often, that might help you make sense of the concept of white balance in photography.
“The Color Of Light is Rarely White”
I have a number of such mantras and this one’s a personal favorite.
We know and expect that light from a beautiful sunrise or sunset is warm in color. However, there are a number of important factors that most folks don’t know about the color of light.
Let me share a few of them with you.
The actual color of light, outdoors, changes throughout the day.
Outdoors shadows are often bluish in color.
Artificial lighting comes in a wide range of color temperatures producing variations in the color of the light emitted.
The word photography translates from Ancient Greek as follows:
Light writing
Light drawing
Light painting
I’m fascinated by how the color of light changes throughout the day and the opportunities for creative expression that offers the enthusiastic photographer.
I’ve written an accompanying post titled The Color Of Light In Photography which I’m sure you’ll find to be an interesting and informative read.
Daylight white balance showcases the beauty of blue light, Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon.
White Balance on the Blue Planet
Our planet looks blue from space, right? Folks often say that’s because of the sea.
Let’s explore this notion by examining this bluish colored photo of an iceberg floating across the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon in Iceland.
It was a special experience to photograph this lone iceberg, having broken off the Breiòamerkurjökull Glacier on a summer’s evening under a clear, blue Icelandic sky.
During the peak of summer in Iceland the sun only dips below the horizon for a few hours but, if the weather’s clear, enough natural light reaches the earth to illuminate the landscape.
Rather than neutralize the color of the light I chose a Daylight white balance to showcase the melancholic beauty of the blue light reflecting off the surface of the lagoon and iceberg.
I’II break down the reasoning behind that approach a little later in this post.
The iceberg is interesting subject matter and there’s a nice contrast between texture and smoothness in the photo.
But it’s the blue light, which imbues the image with its haunting beauty, that I find most compelling.
White Balance and Blue Water
The question remains, is water blue and how can we utilize white balance settings in our camera to produce great color photos.
Actually water is blue, but it’s only very, very slightly bluish in appearance. The color is so weak you probably don’t even notice it.
Think of water coming out of the tap. Unless you live in a part of the world where drinking water is of a pretty dubious quality it’s fair to say that, to all intensive purposes, water is clear. Right!
So where does the blue color of the sky and sea come from?
White light is broken up as it passes through the atmosphere with more blue wavelengths getting through, and becoming visible to the eye, than those from the red and green end of the spectrum. Simple!
That blue light, actually more often a blue/cyan (think of cyan as a color that’s similar to aqua) colored light, is reflected off the water which is why the sea often appears bluish in color.
Have you ever made photos at the beach or of snow covered scenes and felt the color reproduction was colder than you would have expected?
It’s a common problem in photography.
Snow and sand are reflective surfaces which, when placed into shade, can take on a definite bluish color hue.
That’s because the color of the sky is often reflected into shaded areas.
Bright Light Produces Dark Shadows
My second favorite (self penned) mantra is as follows:
“The brighter the light, the darker the shadows will photograph.”
On a bright, sunny day at the beach or when skiing your photos may display deep bluish shadows.
It’s important to understand that the darker the shadows record the bluer they’ll appear in your photos.
Bright, sunny days also provide a range of challenges for portrait photographers who often move their subjects into open shade to avoid the following problems occurring:
Squinting
Bright spots of light on the face
Dark shadows under the eyes
Wrinkles on the face as a result of squinting
Open shade can reduce or even eliminate these problems. But on that kind of day bright, blue light from the sky will be reflected into the shadows.
Why? Because shadows are not lit by the sun, they’re lit by the bluish light from the sky.
Even though it’s a sunny day it’s often best to avoid the sunny/daylight white balance setting when photographing in the shade.
That’s because the sunny/daylight setting actually records the color of light that’s present, and when the light is blue, that’s usually not what you want.
Human Perception Of Color
Humans are able to see, perhaps, 10 million colors. You might think that's crazy as you've never seen a pencil set with that many color pencils in it.
Imagine, for a moment, a color pencil set. How many red colored pencils does it contain?
Generally speaking the more expensive the pencil set the more variations of red, green and blue colored pencils will be included. If you could afford it you could, theoretically, have a giant size color pencil set.
There are, quite literally, thousands of variations in each of the colors the human eye and brain are able to perceive. Those variations come about through differences in a color’s hue, saturation and luminance.
Understanding Color Temperature
Color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin, more commonly known as Kelvin. Different light sources emit different colored light and, therefore, have a different color temperature as defined on the Kelvin Scale.
Incandescent or Tungsten lights are a warm colored light source that emit a yellow/orange colored light.
Candlelight is even warmer, producing a red/orange colored hue which is often noticeable when illuminating people's faces.
If you've never noticed this before it might be because the bright, near white light from your camera’s built-in electronic flash has neutralized much of the warm candlelight on the faces of loved ones blowing out the candles on their birthday cake.
Midday sunlight is supposed to be neutral or white in color. However, the actual color of the light can be affected by the weather and the location as light is often bluer at altitude and the further away from the equator you are.
Gray clouds are actually bluish in color and the darker the clouds the bluer the light will be that passes through them.
Without understanding how to make use of your camera's white balance settings you'll find that the color of light you're photographing under may be detrimental to the mood you'd like your photo to convey.
Fluorescent light is tricky as there are so many different kinds of fluorescent tubes on the market these days. For example there’s a common tube, known as white fluorescent, which emits a greenish colored light.
These lights used to be very common in schools and hospitals and, if no action was taken to reduce this greenish color cast, people photographed under predominantly white fluorescent light would look most unhealthy.
Back in the days of film-based analogue photography I'd employ a magenta colored filter to combat this phenomena. These days I'd choose either the correct fluorescent or auto white balance setting in my camera to resolve the issue.
Kelvin Color Temperature Scale
The above table lists the most common types of light; their color temperature, as defined on the Kelvin scale; and the suggested white balance setting used to produce a more neutral colored result.
The Kelvin (i.e., K) numbers listed are approximate and the suggested white balance settings should be considered as starting point recommendations.
What’s more the suggested white balance settings assume you want to neutralize the color of the light so as to produce a more neutral color rendition.
By doing so you would be using the white balance settings in your camera in a fairly basic manner.
More often than not I use these settings to alter the color of the light under which I’m photographing to produce a more pleasing or emotionally compelling result.
Frankly, reality isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Why not move away from reality if it brings you closer to producing a beautiful sunset photo, even on a day when the light wasn’t so fantastic?
As you continue your way through this article I’II explain my own approach to achieving the desired white balance, in camera. I have a unique approach to doing so and I’m sure you’ll find it both interesting and useful.
In some cases, particularly when more than one light source is present, the most suitable color rendition might be achieved with your cameras Auto White Balance (AWB) setting.
Please note, where accurate color rendition is important, it may be advantageous to photograph under a single colored light source and use the appropriate white balance setting to neutralize the color of that light.
It’s important for me to state that the actual color of light, and the resulting Kelvin temperature, emitted from a natural light source can vary according to the following:
Weather
Time of year
Time of day
Altitude
Latitude
Likewise, the color of artificial light sources can vary with the age of the light source.
Have you noticed how some light sources take a while to build up to their maximum brightness after they’ve been switched on?
While they’re heating up the color of the light emitted from those light sources can change, making it tricky to find the correct manual white balance setting.
In this case the Auto White Balance (AWB) may be the best option as it’s automatically adjusting to the color of the light at the moment the camera’s shutter is released.
Similarly, the color of light emitted from a traditional fluorescent tube changes as electricity travels, from one end to the other, along the length of the tube.
As a result of these variations the white balance settings in your camera's menu have been standardized to fit so-called average conditions for each of the natural or artificial light sources listed.
Again, white balance isn’t always used to neutralize the color of the light. It can also be used to shift the color of the light to influence the mood of the image by producing a warmer or cooler color rendering.
From my point of view, that’s where white balance is particularly useful. Please read on to unlock the full emotive power of those white balance options in your camera’s menu.
White Balance Settings
Your camera can be set to a number of different white balance settings to help you achieve great color rendition. They’re referred to as follows:
Daylight/Direct Sunlight/Sunny
Cloudy
Shade/Shadow
Incandescent/Tungsten
Fluorescent
Flash
Auto White Balance (AWB)
Getting the Right White Balance in Camera
Be wary of the obvious logic that the Sunny white balance is for a sunny day. To my mind that is very much a flawed logic.
Let’s explore each of the above white balance settings in detail so that you’ll know under what conditions each one can be applied to improve the color and communicative power of your photos.
How To Set White Balance in Camera
To set the white balance in your camera simply access the range of white balance options inside your camera’s menu.
Many cameras offer one or more shortcuts including a button, often labelled WB or AWB, to help you access the list of white balance settings quickly and easily.
It’s then just a matter of scrolling through the variety of options until you find the white balance setting that best meets your needs.
Auto white balance produced great color in the glass ceiling, Nicholas Building.
Auto White Balance
The function of Auto White Balance (i.e., AWB) is to neutralize the color of the light under which you’re photographing and, thereby, produce more accurate rendition of color.
Auto White Balance empowers the camera to determine the color of light under which you’re photographing.
The camera then selects what it thinks is the correct white balance setting to achieve accurate color rendition.
But AWB is a relatively unsophisticated judge in so much that its calculations and determinations are completely based upon logic.
As a consequence, depending upon what you’re trying to communicate, AWB either does a good job or makes a mess of things.
AWB can, however, be useful under mixed lighting conditions when the right color balance sits somewhere between two of your camera's default white balance settings.
Take a look at this picture of a colorful glass ceiling in the Nicholas Building in Melbourne, Australia.
I was photographing under mixed lighting conditions and had to deal with daylight coming into the building from outside in addition to the fluorescent lighting illuminating the glass ceiling from behind.
In this particular circumstance Auto White Balance did a great job of achieving a very pleasing white balance. AWB provided an acceptable rendition of the various blue, aqua, yellow and orange colored glass motifs.
Cloudy white balance of sunset above Mitre Peak on Milford Sound, New Zealand.
The problem with Auto White Balance (AWB)
Let’s imagine you’re photographing an incredibly beautiful sunset like I found myself doing at the magnificent Milford Sound on the South Island of New Zealand.
Frankly your camera doesn’t know whether you’re photographing a baby, a landscape or a birthday cake.
So how could it possibly know that you’re photographing a spectacular sunset. It can’t!
Under those conditions your camera will, more than likely, see the dominance of warm light (e.g., red, orange, yellow, magenta colors) and do its best to neutralize them.
As a result your camera fails to record much of the beauty that drew your attention in the first place.
That’s why, with very few exceptions, AWB is not for me. I would rather get the white balance correct in camera and then, where appropriate, alter it to achieve a particular mood or effect on the desktop.
It’s important to know that a poorly set white balance can be a complete disaster for folks photographing with their camera’s set to JPEG.
That’s because the white balance, whether manually selected or automatically set by the camera, is literally baked into a camera-generated JPEG file.
You can adjust a JPEG image with poor white balance on your computer, but you cannot completely fix it when a significant change in white balance is required.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
Daylight white balance recorded this statue at Snow World in Harbin, China.
What Is Daylight White Balance?
A good way to think about Daylight white balance is that it’s designed for photography under neutral colored lighting conditions.
But that’s pretty specific and the fact is that the color of light changes throughout the day, under different weather conditions and at different latitudes.
The best way to think about Daylight white balance, also called Direct Daylight and Sunny white balance on some cameras, is that when selected no actual white balance is being applied.
What I mean by that is that the Daylight white balance is simply keeping the camera at its default white balance setting.
This allows the camera to record the actual color of the light and its affect on the subject or scene depicted.
That’s why Daylight white balance is a good starting point for night photography featuring city lights.
Why? Because it’s likely the color of the lights that attracted your attention in the first place.
You don’t necessarily want to correct or neutralize the color of those lights and a Daylight white balance will ensure the camera accurately photographs the color of the scene.
You can, of course, tweak the color by choosing a different white balance. But the Daylight/Direct Sunlight/Sunny setting is a great starting place when the color of the light is what interests you.
Cloudy white balance produced a warm color rendition on Mount Tamborine, Australia.
Cloudy White Balance
In photography yellow is the opposite of blue and, as we live on the blue planet, light is often bluish in color.
The Cloudy white balance setting effectively adds yellow to your images. That’s precisely what you want to do to neutralize blue light or, alternatively, to add a sense of warmth to an image.
Adding warmth is a great approach for a lot of landscape and architectural photography as it produces a more life-affirming and positive result.
Cloudy can also work well for portrait photos, but it depends on the color of the light under which you’re photographing and how you want to render the individuals skin color.
Folks with particularly warm colored skin don’t always benefit from a Cloudy or Shade white balance.
In that case the Daylight/Direct Daylight/Sunny white balance is often the best option.
Cloudy is my default setting when photographing under natural lighting conditions.
It’s not always the best option but, more often than not, I find it produces great results inline with my own world view.
White balance used to express emotion and mood in Shanghai, China.
Shade White Balance
Put simply the Shade white balance setting, referred to as Shadow on some cameras, adds even more yellow to your image.
I'II move to the Shade white balance setting when the Cloudy setting doesn’t attend to all of the bluish color cast that I want to remove from an image.
That is, of course, assuming I want to reduce the bluish color cast in the first place.
Because blue is such an evocative color there are times when I decide to embrace the mood associated with the color blue.
You’ll remember that approach from the photo near the top of this post featuring the iceberg floating across Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon which I created under blue light conditions.
There’s no doubt the color of the light impacted significantly to the emotive power of that photo.
Now take a look at this image that, to my mind, explores the often facile nature of fashion and celebrity.
It’s a night photo which I made near the entrance to the Peace Hotel on Nanjing Road in Shanghai.
Frankly I thought the sickly sweet color of the advertising panel, featuring the two female models, was important to the success of this highly constructed image.
I wanted the women to appear both alluring and distant and the cool cyan/blue light emitting from the display was key to expressing that notion.
A warmer white balance would have produced a prettier, more positive result. And that, most certainly, was not what I wanted.
Daylight white balance exploring color under mixed lighting in Melbourne, Australia.
Incandescent/Tungsten white Balance
The Incandescent/Tungsten setting in your camera adds blue to neutralize the yellow/orange color of light emitted by this kind of light source.
For the sake of clarity the word incandescent is often favored in the USA, while tungsten, which refers to the metal element in a light bulb from days gone by, is commonly used in Britain.
Camera manufacturers choose to use either the word incandescent or tungsten when referring to artificial light sources of around 3200 K.
Of course, where you want to showcase the color of incandescent light, as I've done in the above photo, a good starting point would be the Daylight white balance setting.
The photo features a narrow alley in the city of Melbourne, Australia. You’ll notice how the Daylight white balance accurately records the varying colors of light in the image.
There’s the warm yellow/orange light shinning through what are actually white window blinds and the cool bluish skylight reflecting, to varying degrees, off the surrounding walls and steps.
Fluorescent White Balance
Some cameras have several Fluorescent white balance settings due to the range of fluorescent tubes in use in residential, commercial and government buildings.
Cameras that have a single Fluorescent setting likely add a mix of magenta and blue to compensate for the greenish/yellow color emitted by the most common type of fluorescent tubes.
One of the great things about digital cameras is that, once the camera and memory cards are purchased, it doesn’t cost you any money to make photos.
This gives you tremendous scope to experiment by trying a variety of options to achieve the desired result.
When photographing under artificial light it can be difficult to know exactly what the most appropriate white balance setting will be.
That’s because, on some occasions, what looks like an old fashion incandescent light might actually be a modern fluorescent light.
If you can’t identify the type of light source in question you might also find it difficult to determine the color of light it emits and what the best white balance setting is likely to be.
The solution is simply to try a few different white balance settings until you achieve a result with which you’re happy.
Environmental portrait of Craig Goldsmith at Grytviken on South Georgia Island.
Flash White Balance
The color of light emitted from your camera's flash is not, strictly speaking, white.
Flash, or strobe as it’s sometimes called, has a slight bluish color and the Flash white balance in your camera adds a small amount of yellow to counter that.
Actually I don't use the Flash white balance setting for flash photography.
I prefer to use one of the other manual white balance settings to influence the color of the background and allow the almost neutral color of light from the flash to illuminate the subject’s face.
That’s the approach I took when making this photo of my friend, Craig Goldsmith, at the old Grytviken Whaling Station on South Georgia Island.
I decided to warm up the background by setting my camera’s white balance to Cloudy and employ the flash to illuminate Craig’s face with relatively white light.
As you can see the technique works just fine and is a great solution when photographing a portrait in front of an otherwise disappointing sunset.
How Do You Use Custom White Balance?
I'm not a big fan of setting a specific Custom White Balance in camera.
No doubt there are certain situations when achieving an absolutely neutral white balance would be considered essential to accurate rendition of color in the subject or scene depicted.
Certain types of fashion, still life, advertising and medical photography would meet that requirement.
However, as a travel photographer, it's more important that the photos I make communicate not just what I saw, but how I felt about what I saw.
Without this approach it's likely the communicative power of your own travel photos will be diminished.
If you're interested in trying out the Custom White Balance feature in your camera you'll need to follow a process something like what I'II outline below.
As the exact process may vary from camera to camera, look for the procedure outlined in your camera's instruction book.
Place a neutral, white object in the same light you're photographing under.
Take a photo of this object.
Go into your camera's Menu and select the Custom WB option.
Search for the image you've just created by pressing your camera's SET button.
Set your camera's White Balance by clicking on the Customer White Balance icon that appears.
One of the difficulties with this process is that there are many things that we consider white which, on closer inspection, display a relatively warm or cool color.
However, if it's not neutral in color you won't be able to achieve a truly accurate white balance which will adversely affect the color rendition of the object you want to photograph.
White Balance Cards and Tools
There are a number of white balance cards and tools that are available for this purpose.
They're designed to be neutral in color and the better ones incorporate a protective covering to help protect the surface from fading or discoloring after exposure to sunlight and human touch.
Cloudy white balance used to photograph the Pudong skyline in Shanghai, China.
Does White Balance Matter When Shooting RAW?
Theoretically it doesn't matter what white balance your camera is set to if you're photographing in RAW mode.
The idea is that you're able to reset the correct white balance in a RAW processor, like Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW, during post processing.
However, it’s my view that increased confidence and a greater willingness to experiment can be derived by confirming exposure, color, sharpness and composition via a real time preview of the image,
That can be achieved, before the exposure is made, on a Mirrorless camera or immediately afterwards on a DSLR camera.
A lot of folks photographing in RAW mode will choose to leave their camera set to AWB.
They know that, in a few seconds, they can change the white balance to any one of the very same presets (e.g., Sunny, Cloudy, Shade) available in their camera within a RAW converter like Lightroom.
However, it’s important to note that this feature is not available when working with a JPEG file.
Either way, I still prefer to get the white balance right in camera.
That’s because the better the image looks on the camera’s LCD screen, or inside the viewfinder of my Mirrorless camera, the happier I’II be and the more confident my approach to making photos becomes.
More confidence leads to more experimentation (e.g., composition) and, often, more interesting images.
Successful White Balance photography workflow showcased in Hosier Lane street art, Melbourne.
White Balance Photography Workflow
If you’re new to working with white balance I’d suggest you photograph a series of scenes at a variety of white balance settings to see how differently they'll record.
For outdoor photography I'd suggest the following approach:
Daylight to see the real color of the light.
Cloudy because it's my recommended default white balance for natural light photography.
Shade to produce an even warmer color rendition, even if it’s just for the purpose of comparison.
AWB to see what the camera thinks is best.
Next determine which of the four images is most appropriate for that particular subject or environment, or for the mood you’re exploring.
Let that be the white balance you chose until the lighting changes.
If the Cloudy white balance setting produces a pretty accurate result, but you feel the image would benefit from a warmer color rendition, then switch to Shade.
At times like this is important to remember that photos are a poor substitute for reality. After all they’re a two dimensional representation of what we perceive as our three dimensional world.
Photography excels when it explores your own, unique world view which, rather than reflecting reality, is biased, selective and emotive.
What’s The Best White Balance For Indoors?
When making photos indoors set your white balance according to the color of light under which you’re photographing.
If it’s window lighting the Daylight, Cloudy or Shade setting will likely produce the best result.
When photographing under predominantly artificial light substitute Cloudy and Shade from the previously detailed White Balance Photography Workflow scenario with the Tungsten/Incandescent and Fluorescent white balance settings.
Conclusion: Understanding White Balance
I hope this comprehensive post has helped to explain the concept of white balance, how it relates to color temperature and how best to match the white balance settings in your camera to the color of the light you’re photographing under and the mood you’re wanting to express.
Armed with this knowledge you’ll be able to make better color photos, more often.
As it’s a very comprehensive guide I’d encourage you to bookmark this page’s url and return to it, again and again, for reference into the future.
And, by all means, feel free to share this post widely and wildly.
Overtime you’ll become more confident employing the variety of white balance settings offered to you in your camera.
You’ll become much quicker at selecting the most appropriate white balance for the lighting you’re photographing under and for the mood or feeling you’re looking to communicate in your photos.
Have no doubt this expanded understanding of color temperature and white balance will improve the accuracy and expressive nature of your color photography.
