Copyright © 2005-2013
Stephen T Batson Jr
Do you sometimes see less than desirable overall color in you images?
Whether you use film or digital, have you ever wondered why sometimes color is really good in some situations and not so good in others? Most cameras will do just fine in daylight because the standard types of film and default digital camera settings are set or Balanced for daylight and flash. Other types of lighting situations such as indoor lighting, cloudy days or other mixed/special lighting situations can give you strange color casts to your images because the film type or camera settings. An example most people will be familiar with is that if you use indoor lighting such as incandescent, also known as tungsten lighting, you will get orangish looking color tones in your pictures and it's not very flattering or desirable. With Fluorescent the images can appear greenish or bluish in tone which can be even worse. And if you have daylight coming in a window but a lot of indoor light, you may see all sorts of strange tones in various parts of your image. If you shoot film, you must either buy film balanced for your lighting situation or use special filters to correct. With Digital Camera's you can either used special settings if the camera supports them or do what is called "Custom White Balance".
Here is an article I wrote quite some time back on white balance that you may find useful.
Disclaimer
I make no claims as to the usefulness of this information to your camera or situation. This information is provide as-is, but I hope it is helpful to you. This is information is simply based on some testing of procedures found from various sources.
Description and Purpose
This information focuses on White Balance as applied to Digital Cameras and may not be applicable to all digital cameras due to feature differences or limitations. This document does not go into great detail or attempt to explain the science behind White Balance, if you have an interest in more detail, please seek out a book or other source of information that is more suited to your needs.
What is White Balance?
Simply put, from a photography standpoint various sources of light put out light of different color temperatures measured with the Kelvin scale. This can range from about 1000K up to about 18000K. Daylight is around 5500K. Tungsten Light is around 3000K. At the low end of the scale, we have Candle Light at about 1500K and at the high end we have Blue Sky which can range from 12,000K on up to about 18,000K.
If you are using film, you must use film that is balanced for the light source if you want your colors to be accurate in your images. Daylight balanced film is probably the most common since it can be used outdoors with sunlight or indoors with a flash or strobe unit that has a color temperature or close to that of daylight. With Digital, there is no film to change so the camera typically includes various white balance settings for common situations. The white balance simply gives the camera a reference point for accurate colors using a point that is considered true white. From there, the rest of the color spectrum is adjusted. These settings may include Auto, Tungsten, Flash, Cloudy, Flash, Shade, or maybe some other settings possibly including the ability to input the desired color temperature assuming you know what it is. Some may also have a custom white balance setting allowing you create a reference that the camera can use to obtain the proper white balance for a given lighting situation. With the proper White Balance, your color tones will look natural and normal. If the color balance is not correct, you can have strange color casts to your images. For example, if you had the camera white balance set for tungsten, you would likely get a blue cast if shooting in daylight. If you shoot with settings balanced for daylight but are using tungsten, you get a yellow or orange cast to your images.
Using Custom White Balance
Auto White Balance may work ok in some or maybe even most situations depending on your camera. The built-in settings for Tungsten, Florescent, Daylight, etc. may also work when properly applied to the type of lighting used. Sometimes the available settings do not work to produce the desired result producing images that have slight color casts or improper color appearance. The best way to insure that you have proper white balance, is to use the custom white balance with a measurement of the light that will be used reflected off of a white card, target or other non reflective neutral white surface. This is typically done by taking a picture of the white source and then setting the camera’s custom white balance feature to use that image as a reference. Once custom white balance is set and the camera set to use the custom white balance, images captured in that light should show the proper colors.
The following three sample images demonstrate what has been talked about so far in regards to tungsten lighting. In this situation, the camera settings, lighting condition and camera position remained fairly constant. You can see however that the auto white balance did the worst job of getting true color, the tungsten setting didn’t do well either even though the light source was tungsten lights from a ceiling light. The first two images have a terrible yellow/orange cast to them. Using the custom white balance yielded the most natural color tone to the image.
I make no claims as to the usefulness of this information to your camera or situation. This information is provide as-is, but I hope it is helpful to you. This is information is simply based on some testing of procedures found from various sources.
Description and Purpose
This information focuses on White Balance as applied to Digital Cameras and may not be applicable to all digital cameras due to feature differences or limitations. This document does not go into great detail or attempt to explain the science behind White Balance, if you have an interest in more detail, please seek out a book or other source of information that is more suited to your needs.
What is White Balance?
Simply put, from a photography standpoint various sources of light put out light of different color temperatures measured with the Kelvin scale. This can range from about 1000K up to about 18000K. Daylight is around 5500K. Tungsten Light is around 3000K. At the low end of the scale, we have Candle Light at about 1500K and at the high end we have Blue Sky which can range from 12,000K on up to about 18,000K.
If you are using film, you must use film that is balanced for the light source if you want your colors to be accurate in your images. Daylight balanced film is probably the most common since it can be used outdoors with sunlight or indoors with a flash or strobe unit that has a color temperature or close to that of daylight. With Digital, there is no film to change so the camera typically includes various white balance settings for common situations. The white balance simply gives the camera a reference point for accurate colors using a point that is considered true white. From there, the rest of the color spectrum is adjusted. These settings may include Auto, Tungsten, Flash, Cloudy, Flash, Shade, or maybe some other settings possibly including the ability to input the desired color temperature assuming you know what it is. Some may also have a custom white balance setting allowing you create a reference that the camera can use to obtain the proper white balance for a given lighting situation. With the proper White Balance, your color tones will look natural and normal. If the color balance is not correct, you can have strange color casts to your images. For example, if you had the camera white balance set for tungsten, you would likely get a blue cast if shooting in daylight. If you shoot with settings balanced for daylight but are using tungsten, you get a yellow or orange cast to your images.
Using Custom White Balance
Auto White Balance may work ok in some or maybe even most situations depending on your camera. The built-in settings for Tungsten, Florescent, Daylight, etc. may also work when properly applied to the type of lighting used. Sometimes the available settings do not work to produce the desired result producing images that have slight color casts or improper color appearance. The best way to insure that you have proper white balance, is to use the custom white balance with a measurement of the light that will be used reflected off of a white card, target or other non reflective neutral white surface. This is typically done by taking a picture of the white source and then setting the camera’s custom white balance feature to use that image as a reference. Once custom white balance is set and the camera set to use the custom white balance, images captured in that light should show the proper colors.
The following three sample images demonstrate what has been talked about so far in regards to tungsten lighting. In this situation, the camera settings, lighting condition and camera position remained fairly constant. You can see however that the auto white balance did the worst job of getting true color, the tungsten setting didn’t do well either even though the light source was tungsten lights from a ceiling light. The first two images have a terrible yellow/orange cast to them. Using the custom white balance yielded the most natural color tone to the image.
Wrapping Up
While it may still be necessary to do some minor adjustments on the computer, getting it right or as close as possible in camera can greatly reduce post processing time and effort. Also keep in mind that the less an image is altered, the better the quality of the print. Each situation and camera will be different and some situations may have better results than others when not using custom white balance. Open shade can produce images with a slight blue color cast when using auto white balance or daylight white balance. Using custom white balance with open shade can warm up the image and prevent the blue cast.
For information on a fantastic tool that helps to insure proper exposure as well as proper white balance, take a look at the Digital Calibration Targets from Photo Vision:
http://www.photovisionvideo.com/digital-targets
While it may still be necessary to do some minor adjustments on the computer, getting it right or as close as possible in camera can greatly reduce post processing time and effort. Also keep in mind that the less an image is altered, the better the quality of the print. Each situation and camera will be different and some situations may have better results than others when not using custom white balance. Open shade can produce images with a slight blue color cast when using auto white balance or daylight white balance. Using custom white balance with open shade can warm up the image and prevent the blue cast.
For information on a fantastic tool that helps to insure proper exposure as well as proper white balance, take a look at the Digital Calibration Targets from Photo Vision:
http://www.photovisionvideo.com/digital-targets
This is great product that I have used and tested and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting an accurate and simple way to insure proper exposure and white balance with the digital camera.
That’s it! I hope this helps.
That’s it! I hope this helps.
