For years, I photographed with automatic white balance, even though I shot manually with every other camera setting on my Canon. If you are a professional photographer, I wanted to introduce you to in-camera custom Kelvin white balance settings. It makes a world of difference and saves having to edit white balance later during your editing process in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.
What is Kelvin white balance?
There are a ton of charts out there that give examples and suggestions for types of lighting and settings. In quick, easy to understand terminology, though, Kelvin white balance is the “temperature” you adjust your photo to, with the lower number settings being on the blue or “cool” side and the higher number settings being on the yellow or “warm” side.
With photos, it’s a balance of light and colors. Because I photograph fully manual, I want to help you understand the “why” behind each camera choice and why you would select that. It’s helpful to know what to change your settings to, but it’s even better to know WHY.
As a general rule of thumb:
Highlights and Shadows:
-Shadows will fall more towards the blues.
-Highlights will fall more towards the yellows.
Is My Photo More Blue/Cool based or Yellow/Warm based?
-If a photo setting has a lot of light that’s blue- or cool- based, you’ll want to change your Kelvin white balance settings to introduce some more yellow to balance out the blues in the shadows.
-If a photo setting has a lot of light that’s yellow- or warm- based, you’ll want to change your Kelvin white balance settings to introduce some more blue to balance out the yellows in the highlights.
What Kelvin White Balance Setting Should I Select?
-To make your photo cooler or more blue-based, turn your Kelvin dial down to the left where the smaller numbers live.
-To make your photo warmer or more yellow-based, turn your Kelvin dial to the right where the larger numbers live.
-BLUE/COOL = Use lower number settings
-YELLOW/WARM = Use higher number settings
Understanding Kelvin White Balance Charts
A lot of the Kelvin white balance charts online can be confusing because they visually show warmer colors on the left end of the spectrum and bluer colors to the right. That is because they are showing you the original light source, not what dialing to that number will do.
Try It Out For Yourself
Try it for yourself! Evaluate your lighting overhead and ask yourself if the lighting is cooler or warmer in color. Take a photo like I did above and roll your Kelvin dial all the way to the left. Now take another photo and roll it all the way to the right and see how the white balance affects your photo. Adjust until it’s where you’d like your photo to be–cooler tones to the left and warmer tones to the right.
I hope that this photo tip helps! :)! Again, I think it’s better to understand the “why” behind doing something, rather than just do it without thinking or processing through and really understanding things. Let me know if this helped by dropping a comment below!
Beba Photography 