How to Correct Your White Balance in Post-Processing

White balance can make or break an image. It is really important to try and get your white balance right in camera, when you take your photo. I have covered the basics about setting your white balance in this article; if you haven't read it be sure to! It will help you understand what it is and why it is so important to getting a great image.  

Once in a while we're in a tough situation and we end up shooting without selecting the best white balance option, leaving us with a very BLUE image or an image that is so ORANGE, it's scary! The good news is that it is easy to fix your white balance in post-processing. I'm going to walk you through how to do this in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Here's an example of a photo I took and didn't like the White Balance. Not even a little bit.

If you compare it to the shot below where I used a custom white balance setting, you'll notice it looks much more inviting and not yucky orange. Luckily, I made the correction IN CAMERA, which is always best... BUT I'll teach you how to fix a photo if you're stuck with a color cast you don't like! 

Step One

Find your white balance dropper tool. It looks like this below, on the top is Lightroom and the bottom is the top toolbar in camera RAW in Photoshop. 

Use this tool to find and click on a neutral area in your image (any area that is white, black or gray). This will automatically adjust your white balance settings; try a few different neutral areas and see which one is the closest to the light & setting you took the photo in. 

Another trick to picking a good neutral for your dropper tool is to watch the numbers in the box below (RGB) and try to get these three values to be as close as possible for the best results. 

This is the result below from picking a neutral in my image above. It's still a little green and a little yellow, so check the next step below to get it just right!

Step Two

In most cases, you'll want to make smaller adjustments by using your white balance sliders to fine-tune the image. Check the toolbars below:

Play around with the temperature sliders to get your white balance exactly where you want it. Here's a finished image after using my temperature and tint sliders to get it where I wanted it. This is where I got my first YUCKY orange image! Doesn't it look a whole lot better?

Step Three

If you're not getting the results you want, you can try to choose a pre-selected white balance setting that fits your image. For example, select from the drop-down menu below to choose 'shade' if you shot in the shade, and see what it does for you. You'll only have these options if you shot in RAW. If you didn't, you'll have an Auto setting. 

The Auto setting did a pretty good job for the image below! It was too cool for me, and just selecting the Auto option warmed it up great. That's the only thing I clicked to get it from the image on the left to the image on the right. Try it out and see if it gets you closer to where you want to be.

I hope these White Balance tools can help you get your images where you want them to be, even if you rush and choose the incorrect settings in camera! The more you practice and play around with it, the easier it gets to fine-tune your White Balance and get the most natural looking photos. 

GOOD LUCK!

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White Balance - Why it is so Important

White Balance is a term that takes a back seat at times, but can be the game changer between your photos turning out beautiful or seriously yucky. I said it, yucky. Your house happens to be a little dark inside, and when you take a portrait of your baby (with your camera on auto), it looks like someone smeared a dirty orange peel over your lens. We all have them; these annoying orange photos, thanks to tungsten light!

SO you decided to head outside into the shade with your cute baby, but when you take the photo on Auto White Balance, the whole photo now looks blue. How can we correctly show the colors of light, that our eyes so easily adjust to, but our cameras sometimes don't?

WHITE BALANCE!

I promise you it will change your life. Listen up. 

Every light source has within it, a certain color of light. White Balance refers to how accurate the colors in your photos show. It's easy to think of it as how warm or cool your images turn out. Some photos have a bad color cast to them, making white not look like true white. If we understand how to set our White Balance to match our lighting scenario, we can drag these yucky photos to the trash can and start getting images with great color and true whites.

Here's a chart that simply describes the White Balance settings on your camera:

Let's get some examples going so you can see the difference. These two images below do all the talking. The one on the left? YUCK! The photo is a little dark to begin with, but the color cast from my auto white balance setting? It's terrible. The image on the right I shot using my custom white balance setting. My camera has the Kelvin scale, which I love and use about 90% of the time I shoot.

This example is what mommatography is all about - encouraging you to take your camera off auto and see how much better your images can get (even if you start by using different white balance settings). 

The next two images were both shot outside in the snow. The first image was shot on Auto Mode, including Auto White Balance. The bottom image I shot on Manual Mode, with my Custom White Balance setting. Look how vibrant the colors are and how much more life the second image has than the first! 

First image - Auto White Balance. Second image - Custom White Balance setting.

First image - Auto White Balance. Second image - Custom White Balance setting.

Refer to your camera manual for instructions on how to shoot using a custom white balance. Some of these methods include carrying around a gray card and shooting a photo of the gray card in the lighting scenario you are in. If you don't feel like trying to figure out how to use the custom setting, at least play around with the other preset white balance modes based on the chart I made above - if your image is too warm, use a cooler setting and vice versa. Your camera won't give you correct results in these modes every time, but they can be a step in the right direction.

If you want to start somewhere simple, try shooting with your Tungsten White Balance setting when you're inside with little or no natural light, and the warmth of the artificial light needs to be toned down. It is much easier to get your White Balance correct IN camera, while shooting, than try to fix it in any editing software after. Try and get it right in camera. 

Remember that it takes a little practice to get used to but the results are WELL worth it! Good luck!

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