Month: February 2010

Can you see any difference between…

… these two pictures?

You surely can.

The first one is cursed with some unsightly orange cast.

And let me tell you that I was struggling with that unwanted cast for quite some time.

Until one day – one lovely, sunny day – I stumbled upon an article on white balance.

And that changed my life.

Literally.

The orange cast is caused by tungsten (or bulb) light when you take pictures under… well… bulb light.

Our eyes get used to that light and see the colors the way they really are but cameras don’t.

Actually, they don’t unless you tell them to.

Which means … there IS a way how to free yourself from these orange chains.

If you really, really wish for the colors on your pictures to be more true to life, please, go into your camera settings and search for the white balance settings.

The point-and-shoot camera users can find wonderful settings not only for the tungsten (bulb or indoor) lighting but also for outdoors, cloudy, sunny, shade and other lighting conditions.

Those using DSLR cameras can find the exactly same settings in their menus.

And on top of that – there is something called CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE.

I find that setting absolutely gorgeous, amazing, awesome and great and… let me stop myself right here.

And it’s so easy to use.

Basically, what you do is that you take a picture of a white object (for example a sheet of paper, a coffee filter, a white food container lid) under the exact lighting conditions you plan to take the other pictures.

Then you go into the menu of your camera and do all the required steps to save this picture the way it should be saved (please, please – check your camera manual for the specifics because cameras vary from model to model; just be looking for the CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE).

By taking the picture of a white object you are telling your camera – “Hey,
camera, this is white, all right? Not orange, not yellow, not anything else. I’m grateful you remember that.”

… So now you have told your camera what white looks like where you are shooting.

And from now on you’ll be nothing else but happy.