Unless you’re constantly working in problematic lighting conditions, there’s a good chance you'll typically have your camera’s white balance system set to auto. Many cameras do a decent job here, particularly under natural light, and most people are well aware that rectifying any minor issues is straightforward enough when processing raw files.
We tend to see its role as corrective, something to help provide balance in images, and for that reason it’s easy to overlook what it can do when used as a creative tool in its own right. Much like you would vary your camera’s colour options, you can use white balance to enhance or transform different scenes into something completely different.
What are your options?
There was a time when cameras offered little more than an auto white balance option and a small handful of presets such as cloudy, tungsten and flash.
Then came along custom white balance and the option to adjust colour temperature over the Kelvin scale, as well as a raft of sub-presets for different fluorescent sources.
Many cameras allow you to bias white balance options in the direction of your choosing
Now, we have all this in addition to charts that allow you to bias a setting towards specific hues, and options that retain warmth in the scene when using auto white balance. With so much choice, it’s shame not to experiment and see what’s achievable in camera.
Enhance vs transform
Perhaps you’ve accidently used the cloudy preset on a sunny day? In such a situation the camera will attempt to compensate for cooler conditions with extra warmth. This can give sunsets and sunrises an added boost, in a more natural way than boosting saturation in camera might, and is one example of enhancing what’s already there.
The more extreme approach is to inject something completely different into the scene. Using the colour temperature scale, the same scene rendered with 2,500K and 10,000K settings would look very different. Not every scene would benefit from such an extreme approach, however. So what does work and why?
Suitability
As a general rule, the more abstract and neutral something is to begin with, the more malleable it is to adjustment. If something appears as though it may well look like that in real life, you image will be more believable, and this allows it to have greater efect.
For example, take a look at the triplet of images below. The middle image is the orignal one from the camera, while those on either side of it have been treated with different white balance options. Although there are a number of reasons why different treatments for this image look strange, a lot of it comes down to the fact that we recognise the subjects and can appreciate how the cast affects them. We also know the likelihood of the pelican being in an environment where the foliage behind it appears as anything but green is slim. To my eyes, only the image as originally captured works.
We recognise too much of this subject for it to lend itself to more extreme colour casts
In the series of images below, however, we have no idea what is in the background of these water droplets, and this gives us more freedom to experiment with different white balance options. The middle option, which is straight from the camera, is somewhat drab, and the image as a whole isn't that striking. Yet, changing its white balance doesn't affect the subject as it’s fairly featureless to begin with and the results on either side are more powerful.
More neutral subjects lend themselves better to experimentation
Likewise in this image, we know little about the environment, and so it can be played with more freely. Those who live in, or have visited, Berlin, may recognize it as Potsdamer Platz U-Bahn station, and they may know that the panels are green in reality. Yet, most people will not be aware of this. Together with the lack of context and the fact that the subject is in silhouette means that there is greater freedom for experimentation without the image appearing too far removed from reality.
Silhouetted subjects in fairly plain surorundings can work well for different treatments
Final thoughts
You could, of course, have a look through your hard drive for older files of more abstract subjects and experiment with these in the software of your choice, although another approach, and definitely a good discipline, is to go out and shoot everything at a white balance that’s completely inappropriate for the conditions in which you’re shooting (or the equivalent colour temperature).
Doing this will allow you to appreciate what kinds of subjects lend themselves to this kind of treatment, and may help you to visualise these kinds of things easier in the future. Combining this with different colour options, different levels of contrast and so on can help you get closer to the result you want without any post-processing too.
Matt Golowczynski is a London-based journalist and photographer who has contributed to a range of photography magazines and websites over the past ten years. You can follow him on Twitter and see more of his work at www. mattgolowczynski. com
. digitalrev.com2017-3-11 03:00