White Balance
White balance corrects a photo's overall color cast to make a genuinely white or neutral-gray object appear white in the final image, compensating for the color temperature of the actual light source illuminating the scene. Tungsten bulbs skew warm and orange; open shade and overcast skies skew cool and blue; a camera's white balance setting corrects for whichever cast is present.
Auto white balance estimates the correction automatically from the scene itself, while manual settings (measured in Kelvin, or preset modes like daylight, cloudy or tungsten) let a photographer specify it directly — important in mixed or unusual lighting where automatic estimation can guess incorrectly. Shooting RAW keeps white balance fully adjustable after the fact; JPEG bakes the chosen setting in permanently.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does white balance affect exposure?
No — white balance is purely a color correction, entirely separate from aperture, shutter speed and ISO, which control brightness. Changing white balance shifts color temperature only, with no effect on how bright or dark the image appears.
Why does auto white balance sometimes get it wrong?
It works by estimating what should be neutral in a scene, which can be genuinely ambiguous in mixed lighting, scenes with a dominant single color, or unusual light sources the algorithm wasn't well-calibrated for — manual or custom white balance is more reliable in those specific situations.