Canon: White Balance

How do you set the white balance? AWB, the automatic white balance, sunny, cloudy, or flash… The AWB mode will let the computer (oops the camera) do a quick analysis and decide.

Now here’s the problem: Do you care? Should you care? “I shoot raw, why should I care?”

My answer is: “That depends!” Talk about waffling, but it’s true, that depends.

1. Raw outdoor: who cares. Makes not difference, the white balance is easily changed in Lightroom or any other processing software. The white balance is just a flag.
2. JPEG outdoor: Need to get it right, because even changing the white balance in any processing software will degrade the photos. The white balance is “baked” in.

3. Raw indoor: What’s the light source? Where are the sources? Side window lighting with or without flash? Tungsten bulbs? Fluorescent? This is when it becomes tricking, the solution is to either:

   • Balance all the various lights with gels.
   • Select which light is the most important and balance just for that light.
   • Change the location like taking the photo outside or move to where one light is much more preponderant.
   • Be a Photoshop specialist and correct in the white balance is PS. This will not work in Lightroom.

4. JPEG indoor: It’s actually a little bit simpler:

   • Balance all the various lights with gels.
   • Change the location like taking the photo outside or move to where one light is much more preponderant.
   • Be a Photoshop genius and correct in the white balance is PS.

Actually, this is not just for Canon, it’s also for Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sony.