I’m going to talk about the white balance function in the simplest terms I can. I’m probably stepping into hot water here but when I first started trying to figure out these settings, I was just looking to find a few simple tips to help improve my Etsy photos.
I found lots of places where the white balance function was being discussed feverishly and everybody seemed to have some type of opinion. There’s just so much information there and it’s very confusing if you’re starting from a zero knowledge base and only want simple information.
No. 1 – What is this white balance thingy anyway? White balance is simply a color correction function. You know you might need to adjust your white balance if your photos are too blue, too orange or too green.
No. 2 – Why does that happen?I could go into this for a couple of paragraphs but basically, different light sources offer different color light. Normally, you don’t notice this because your eye makes up for it. Your camera is not able to do that.
No. 3 – Oh, I see, I need to increase the intensity of light then?
No! It’s about the color of the light and has nothing to do with intensity of the light. You might be outside taking great photos under natural daylight, and then you go inside and start taking icky photos under light bulbs. This is not happening because you have a crappy camera or need to increase the intensity of the light. The light bulb IS giving off a different color light.
No. 4 – Ok, so what can I do?Your camera defines all color based on what it thinks the color white looks like and hence the importance of having the correct white balance. If you set the correct value for white then everything else with be alright (that rhymed, I’m really sorry).
No. 5 – Just tell me how to fix it already?Purchase Paint Shop Pro or alternatively, your camera will have a number of settings to deal with this problem. Go the white balance menu (the one with the little pictures of a light bulb, sun, cloud and whatnot etc.)
Depending on your camera, you generally will have the following options:
Auto
Incandescent
Fluorescent
Sunlight
Flash
Cloud
Night
Smart/Preset/Manual
Auto tries to figure everything out on its own and virtually never succeeds. The rest of them are guesstimates, which means that if you’re taking photo’s under direct sunlight then a good place to start is to select “Sunlight” from the white balance menu but these are general settings and do not guarantee perfection. Preset allows you to take a photo of something white and select “this is white”. The camera then uses that value to define all other color and produce what should be good photos.
So you see that this white balance thingy is actually not very complicated at all! Don’t’ be afraid to experiment with ANY of your camera settings. Adjusting your white balance is something that gives immediate results. I find that the best thing is to find what works for you. Think of it as nothing more than a tool to help solve color issues.
Labels: balance, etsy, good photos, photographing for etsy, taking photos, white
posted @ 4:11 AM
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