Understanding white balance is one of those topics that gets talked about so much that the meaning starts to blur. In simple terms, white balance is about making sure the colors in your photograph look true. When the white areas in a photo actually look white, your color is accurate.
But perfect, pure white isn’t always the goal. In fact, when whites are too white, the image can start to look unnatural. Sometimes perfect white balance works against the artistic feel you want. Before we get into that, let’s take a minute to look at what the different white balance settings actually do and how you can use them to get close to the right color.
Different kinds of lighting affect white balance in different ways, and your camera’s settings are there to help correct that. Tungsten lighting, also known as incandescent lighting, is common indoors, especially with older bulbs or newer bulbs designed to mimic that warm glow. If you photograph under tungsten light with a daylight setting on your camera, everything will look too warm — yellow to orange, sometimes extremely orange.
Fluorescent lighting takes you in the opposite direction. Traditional fluorescent tubes in stores or offices, and even some compact fluorescent bulbs in homes, tend to create a cool color cast. Whites can shift toward pale green or blue unless the bulbs are specialty types made to give off a particular temperature.
Shade can also give your images a cool cast. Light filtering through leaves tends to lean toward green, though not as strongly as fluorescent lights. Daylight settings help correct for the warm tone of direct sunlight, which can push whites slightly yellow if left unadjusted. Flash lighting tends to be a little cool too, so the flash setting warms the image to keep things balanced.
Besides these standard settings, you’ll usually find others on your camera, including auto white balance. Auto can be convenient if you’re moving between lighting environments, but it doesn’t always deliver the most accurate results. For real precision, many cameras offer custom settings that let you fine-tune the color temperature to suit the exact light you’re working with.
Once you understand how white balance works, it’s worth asking what “perfect” white balance actually means. Some people say perfect white balance means whites that are absolutely pure, with no tint at all. But when you look closely at those kinds of images, the pure white areas often feel like blown-out highlights — empty, harsh, even distracting.
Real life isn’t made of perfect white. Look around you right now. A white sheet of paper sitting nearby is probably reflecting the color of whatever light is in the room. Maybe it’s picking up a warm tone from a lamp or a slight green tint from a nearby object. Reality almost always carries a subtle color cast.
That’s why a slight, barely noticeable cast in your images usually looks more natural than pure white. You don’t want strong blue or orange tones throwing off the whole image, but a gentle hint of color can make your photograph look real and keep it from feeling artificial. Think in terms of very pale off-white rather than absolute white. These subtle tones bring life and depth into your images, in a way that stark, perfect white simply can’t match.
