The first question that comes to the mind of most individuals who are new to photography is what white balance is? The concept of white balance (WB) is similar to the use of filters in the world of cinema to rectify the fluorescent light that tends to show up in photos clicked indoors.
The fluorescent light makes pictures appear yellowish or orange in colour with a bluish glow. The white balance feature is used in photography to replace the age-old filters. Most digital cameras and image editors come equipped with a white balance features and other features as seen here https://skylum.com/luminar/noise-reduction.
Why You Need White Balance Or (Wb)
Why do pictures come out with a fluorescent light? Light has a colour temperature; it is the main reason why pictures turn out yellow or even orange with a bluish cast. If your picture has red incandescence, the work is likely a result of a low colour temperature; whereas a high colour temperature would bring out blue light.
How White Balance Works
Manual white balance is what most professional photographers use to tell the camera which objects in the frame are to appear white in the shot. The camera then uses that information to gauge the distinction between the present colour temperature and the right colour temperature of all the white objects in the frame. It then goes on to shift all the colours of the objects by the difference.
Automatic White Balance Versus The Manual Version
A lot of the more advanced digital cameras have a manual white balance feature you can customize to your needs; however, some photographers still prefer to use the automatic version. An (AWB) or Auto White Balance function is very common in most of today’s digital cameras, although some of the brands support it better than others. AWB used ideally for bright and sunny days as well as the cloudy ones, works both outdoors as well as for your indoor projects.
When To Use WB
White balance is an ideal feature for the times when your photographs are lit with incandescence and are unsatisfactory; you can readjust the colour cast in your shot with the automated WB settings on your camera. If you wish to go further and tinker with WB, you could manually configure the white balance with the help of a white sheet of paper.
Some photographers tend to be perfectionists and would want to go above and beyond for the right WB; they could take their shots in a RAW file format and fix the WB during the post-processing.
