Pixiq

Auto white balance (or AWB) might be seen as a real photographer's boon. After all, it gives adequate color in all sorts of lighting conditions, and is a lot better than the days of film. Color film was balanced to a specific color of light and had to be adjusted with filters to get colors looking good if you shot in a different light. I can remember doing assignments carrying along a color temperature meter and a big set of color balancing filters in order to get the best color.

Maybe because I used to do that and maybe because I am just particular about color, but I don't like auto white balance for most photography, especially when you are outdoors. The photos here from the Albuquerque Balloon festival were shot with specific, preset white balance because of these problems with auto white balance:

• It is inconsistent. AWB is designed to constantly change. That is its job! It has to try to keep up with any lighting conditions it sees. That creates a real ...
• Workflow challenge. Since AWB is inconsistent, it means photos come into the computer with inconsistent color. Now I have to fix the problem shots, but which ones are they? So I now have to go through all images, compare and check color, make corrections as usually needed. What a pain. If you think this is not a big deal, read on ...
• It almost always gives a compromise for color. Let's face it, AWB does not "know" what the conditions are. It can only guess. And I find that, no matter what the camera brand, it often guesses "okay" only in the sense that any compromise is "okay." I don't want compromises in my color. 
• It frequently adds a blue color cast to outdoor shots. This drives me crazy. I hate this look, and I see it in a lot of photos, including my students' work at BetterPhoto.com (before they know why to avoid AWB). It makes neutral tones have a hint of blue and it weakens all colors that are not blue. It especially saddens me to see photographers sharing photos of family with bluish skin tones because that is just so unnecessary. Who wants to look at people photographs showing people looking half dead? 
• The blue color cast really makes photos less inviting. Research by Kodak and Fuji in the days of film found that viewers disliked photos that had a bluish cast compared to those that were truly neutral or were slightly warm. That is one reason for the warm bias of old films like Kodachrome and Velvia. 

Whenever I bring this up to serious photographers, I always get someone who says they shoot RAW and this doesn't matter. It does matter. When you are shooting RAW, there is still a white balance set and "remembered" by the file. This is how the image opens in the RAW conversions software (Lightroom, Camera Raw, etc.). Sure, you can change the white balance very easily, but to what? Remember that AWB often looks "okay."

I have seen pros and high-end amateurs with serious blue-cast issues in their photos after they have "adjusted them in RAW" because you get used to seeing that color cast on the monitor and you accept it as okay. It doesn't matter if you have a calibrated monitor or not. A calibrated monitor will show skewed colors just fine and will not tell you if they are off. You must have some sort of standard, such as a pure gray card that has been adjusted to pure gray, to measure this against, and I have rarely seen anyone do this. Saying you can adjust a photo on the screen without some sort of standard is like trying to maintain a speed in a car without a speedometer. Try telling the cop that pulls you over that "I know I was going 60. I could just tell."

I typically do one of two things: Pick a white balance setting that matches the conditions, such as sunny for sunlight, or one that slightly warms up the scene, such as cloudy for sunrise or sunset. It is easy to tell if you have the wrong white balance -- just check your LCD. This takes such little time, yet the benefits are huge. I rarely change white balance on my images in the computer (I use Lightroom) and none of my photos have weak color from blue cast compromises. The photos here were shot with Nikon's wonderful, compact DSLR, the D3100, and always at a specific white balance. The colors are rich, clear and accurate -- no blue casts disturbing them. At this time of day, cloudy often shows off the early morning light better than sunny settings. 

Lindsey Silverman of Nikon gave me a great tip at the Balloon Festival this year. If he is dealing with a tricky white balance condition, he sets the camera to live view so he can see what the camera is actually seeing on the sensor. Then he adjusts the white balance until the scene looks good. 

For me, white balance is just a part of the craft of digital photography. If I want the best in color from my photos, and color is very important to me, I never use AWB unless I am indoors with very unpredictable lighting. I would also use AWB if I were a photojournalist following a political candidate as he or she moved through different lighting conditions. 

On a different note, if you love nature photography, at some point, you must travel to Costa Rica and shoot in the rainforest. It is an amazing place. I am leading a short tour there early in December and we will have a fantastic time. The location is a lodge actually built in second-growth rainforest and it has covered walks so we can shoot in any weather! Check it out at Holbrook Travel.