White Balance

I have written in previous posts about color casts and using gray cards. A related topic is white balance. White balance sets the camera so that the light source is considered in an attempt to make objects that should appear white in person appear white in the photograph. Not only do we shoot in different light sources, such as incandescent, fluorescent, solar, etc., but we also shoot under different lighting conditions using these different light sources. For example, mid-day sunlight is much cooler and harsher than dawn or dusk sunlight. As a landscape photographer, I most often do not want a white object to appear white when the light from the rising sun is cast upon it, simply because that light is not white. However, the white balance still affects the way that the ambient light is captured.

You can set the white balance on your camera, either to its preset conditions or to automatic. Many higher end cameras let you set the white balance via the color temperature. There are even products out there, like the ExpoDisc that will set your white balance in the field. These options are of tremendous benefit if you need a white object to appear white, as in product or portrait work, or if the scene just does not look right without it. But I tend to not deal with white balance at all in the field. Instead, I shoot RAW. The RAW format allows for setting the white balance in the RAW converter. As such, I leave my white balance set to auto and change it to suit the image in post-processing. For most of my images, the white balance is by far the most drastic change I make.

In this shot of sea stacks taken in the early morning at Oceanside, OR, there is a good bit of mist in the air, reflection on the wet sand, and shadow. All of these tend to reflect the blue sky and therefore cool the image. The rising sun, though, illuminates the tops of the stacks with warm light. Striking a balance in these settings is quite difficult. If I had shot in JPEG with a preset white balance I would have a very hard time getting the white balance just right. Shooting in RAW lets me adjust and view on the fly.

Sunrise on Sea Stacks, Dark Cliff, Oceanside, Oregon

Another example is this shot from the top of Steamboat Rock in Steamboat Rock State Park in western Washington. I captured the image in the early afternoon. The auto white balance had the dried grasses very dull and cold. Adjusting the white balance in the RAW conversion brought out the reds and yellows of the grasses and rocks while maintaining the blue of the sky and water.

Banks Lake Below Steamboat Rock

The RAW converter I use is built in to Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop. And when I complete the conversion I bring the image into Photoshop as an object so that I can, if needed, make changes to the RAW conversion later.

I will speak more about RAW files and my conversion workflow in later posts. If you have the ability to shoot RAW in your camera, give it a try. You will be amazed at the amount of post-processing you can do before you even enter Photoshop.