Every photographer should know what the White Balance (WB) photography setting on their camera does! Actually, most of you probably already know about white balance, from a technical standpoint. What about the creative side of this camera setting?
In case you need a reminder, WB essentially makes your images appear to have either neutral, “correct” colors, or colors that are either “warm” or “cold.” This article won’t cover the technical side of how white balance works; there’s already plenty of great content out there. Instead, these white balance photography tips will show you how and when to intentionally get creative with your white balance and enhance your artistic eye.
Photographers might think that white balance should always be set correctly. Honestly, though, what is “correct?” Your camera has white balance presets for sunny or cloudy conditions — should you always just use the setting that matches your light conditions? Also, if you do use those settings, what will your images look like? Will they always have totally neutral colors that don’t capture the mood of a scene?
In my opinion, getting WB perfectly neutral every single time is a great way to wind up with a boring portfolio. Instead, I’m going to invite you to ignore the notion of “correct.” White balance is a highly subjective setting, and what is correct is simply what looks pleasing to your eye.
Also, unlike your camera’s exposure settings, you don’t need to worry about getting your white balance perfect in-camera for maximum image quality. You can change it freely in your non-destructive RAW conversion software. With that in mind, let’s get creative and “throw” our white balance around to see what happens!
What is White Balance?
First, a simplified explanation of what White Balance (WB) is:
Essentially, your camera’s sensor measures the light that hits each pixel, and it uses red, green, and blue color filters on individual, different pixels to measure the color.
When you click a photo, your exposure settings affect how bright the image is — of course — and your image data is “locked in.” This is why, if you don’t get your exposure right, your highlights or shadows can be lost! Highlights can be clipped, or shadows can have excessive noise.
White balance, however, is not a fixed setting! If you are capturing RAW image files, you can adjust white balance freely after you capture a photo. (JPG images have a fixed white balance, though.)
Adjusting your white balance is how you control the balance of all colors in your image, on a scale from “warm” to “cool.” Why is this necessary? Because not all light is the same color! Sunlight is a very different color of light compared to indoor incandescent light, or a campfire.
Therefore, we usually set our white balance so that objects which we know are neutral in color, (white/grey) in reality, actuallly appear that way in the image.
How to Use White Balance Creatively
What if you don’t want every image you capture to be perfectly neutral, though? Honestly, some scenes just look beautiful when they are awash in cool blue hues, or a warm glow.
Every subject and scene is different, of course, and each photographer’s creative inspiration may lead them to go in one direction instead of another. However, oftentimes there are certain scenes that more frequently lend themselves to one or the other.
Here are a few general guidelines when you are choosing a creative WB setting:
- The “golden hour” glow of late afternoon or early morning light often lends itself to warmer WB settings.
- The “blue hour” light, after sunset or before sunrise, often lends itself to cooler WB settings.
- Any scene or moment that seems ominous, foreboding, somber, etc, could likely benefit from a cooler cast.
- (Here’s the “movie magic” secret!) A scene or moment that is meant to depict emotions like love or romance could likely benefit from a warm cast.
These suggestions are just the basics. Many other genres of photography will definitely lend themselves to creative white balance.
Of course, “rules” are meant to be broken too. So, from time to time, be sure to try another creative option, just to see what it looks like! This is as easy as dragging the WB slider up and down in post-production, and taking some notes for the next time you are out in the field.
Remember, this RAW image adjustment is completely unlocked and non-destructive, so there are no “wrong” choices.
The Best Way to Set White Balance for Creativity
If you simply set your camera to daylight WB, you will naturally capture warm scenes and cool scenes with those corresponding color casts. However, you can further enhance any image by pushing the WB slider a little further in one direction or the other.
Simply put, if you drag your WB slider down, (to the left) your image will become more blue/cool. If you drag the WB slider up, (to the right) your image will become more warm/red. This is the same in all RAW editing software that we know of.
For further creative adjustment, you can adjust the Tint slider as well; the down/left direction will make your image take on a greenish color cast, while the up/right direction will make your image take on a magenta/purple cast. Be careful with the Tint slider, though; it can have an extreme effect rather quickly.
Creative WB In-Camera
What about setting your white balance in-camera? It’s a great idea to see your creative vision on the back of the camera while you are out taking pictures, instead of only ever getting creative in post-production.
When it comes to in-camera white balance, I am going to recommend what has worked for me for more than a decade for both paid work and also vacations, adventures, and casual everyday snapshots.
Kelvin WB — learn it! Kelvin white balance is the “M mode” of color temperature. You dial in the exact number manually, and you have total control over the entire range of white balance. This makes it simply effortless and highly intuitive to warm up or cool off your images, every single time.
Auto WB vs. WB Tools Vs. Creative WB
Some experts will recommend leaving your camera in Auto White Balance (AWB) while other pros will suggest something fancy like a WB measurement tool, an opaque filter or gray card that gives you a “perfect”, custom color measurement. These are both good ideas, if you want every image you capture to have perfectly neutral white balance.
Unfortunately, both recommendations fall short when your goal is to diverge from what is correct, and easily experiment with various color casts. It is also a waste of time to memorize all the different presets, such as daylight vs cloudy vs shady, or incandescent vs fluorescent vs tungsten, etc.
So, set your camera to “K” WB, and start at 5000 K; that’s daylight. Down to 3000K is your range for various indoor lighting, and up to 7000K is your range for things like cloudy and shady.
In the above white balance photography example, could you guess what the neutral/warm white balance setting is? It’s blue hour so — believe it or not — the WB setting is over 15,000K. Thats’s what it takes to achieve an overall balance at this time of day.
The warm glow on the cliffs may look aesthetically nice. However, this blue version below with its WB at “only” 6700K, gives the viewer cold, nighttime vibes, so it could be a good creative direction.
In most cases, warming up or cooling off your image won’t require such a dramatic shift as this. They call it “blue hour” for a reason — it’s extremely blue!
For example, even moonlight, which seems quite blue to the human eye, is a better example. Below, the two images captured only an hour later, are “just” 6000K (the warm one) and 5000K (the cool one):
So, try going warm or cool by about 500K or 1000K, and see how that looks. For example, if you are photographing a daylight scene that you want to be extra warm, try 6000K.
Warm WB Photography Ideas & Inspiration
In the above image, a sunset, “correct” would have been about 5000K (daylight WB), and if I wanted to make the scene appear totally neutral, I would need to go down to about 4000K. However, thinking creatively, it wouldn’t make much sense. So, to enhance the existing warm tones, I chose to go with 5800K.
In the above image, the lighting was very warm in color. To “correct” the color cast, I would have needed to dial WB down to about 2500K! However, the warmth actually suits the moment, of course, which is why a slightly warmer setting of 3500K was chosen.
In this classic scene captured just after sunrise, the warm sunlight felt literally warm after a rather cold night in the mountains. Once again, I chose to set the WB to about 6000K, instead of 5000K. The result is an enhancement of what a viewer might actually feel if they were standing there witnessing the scene with their own eyes.
Cool WB Photography Ideas & Inspiration
In the above image, this wedding reception ballroom was lit by light that was very blue. With a WB setting of 7000K, shows how it might have felt to actually be there in the room. The relatively neutral WB in the image below (with a WB of 50,000K) isn’t an accurate representation of the scene.
Both images are aesthetically pleasing, and neither version is “wrong.” However, I would probably deliver the top, blue-toned image to my bride and groom because that is the moody lighting they wanted.
In the above sunrise image, the dominant lighting condition is actually shade, not sunlight. The WB was set to 5900K, which you’d think would make the scene appear warmer if it were sunlight. Remember, however, that shade is actually quite blue in color temperature, even though it may not appear that way to the naked eye. To eliminate this blue hue, a WB of 7500 might have been chosen. But since it is literally a cold winter scene, a “cool” white balance was chosen.
Lastly, there are some scenes where the light has an unexpected, strong color cast, and your creative decision might be the opposite of what you’d think! In the above scene, the landscape is side-lit by an intense, firey sunrise. Could you guess the white balance? Believe it or not, this image has a white balance setting of just 4900K. The warm glow is caused by the sunrise being so intense.
Conclusion | Creative White Balance Photography Tips
Hopefully, the concept of creative white balance photography has been made simple for you to understand now! Both in the field (using Kelvin WB) and in raw conversion, it really is quite simple from a technical standpoint. Dial your WB up or down until you find neutral, and then “push” in a warmer or cooler direction.
The artistic process is where the fun lies. Use these white balance photography tips to get creative, try something new, and don’t always assume you have to follow the rules and make every image look neutral and “correct”! What is truly correct is whatever your final vision tells you.
