So now that you know the white balance control is doing, let's look at your camera to see how to tell it what setting to use. Most cameras will have some if not all of the settings shown here. The icons I've used here are common to all Canon cameras.

There are typically six preset color temperature settings for you to choose from for setting your white balance: tungsten, fluorescent, daylight, flash, cloudy, and shade. These presets represent common types of light. If your scene contains multiple types of light you should normally select the white balance that corresponds to the highest color temperature light in the scene.

If you don’t want to use a preset you may have a few other options available to you: Kelvin, Auto White Balance (AWB), and Custom.

You can use the Kelvin setting to enter a color temperature number directly for the white balance setting. If you are using studio lighting where you know a lot about the lights you are using this is a reasonable way to go.

Now, most people want convenience, and convenience means not having to worry about white balance at all, right? Well, that's what auto white balance (AWB) is for. The camera will look at the scene and try to find something in the scene that is white. If it finds something it thinks is white it'll calculate the color temperature based on the amount of red, green, and blue light detected and set the white balance accordingly. It does this for each picture, so the white balance may change from frame to frame (might be a problem if you plan on composing those pictures into something else later on). It also means you run the risk of your camera not finding a white reference in the picture. When this happens it uses something else to set the white balance which usually results in inaccurate colors in the final image.

Finally, there's custom white balance. With this setting you must point the camera at something that is known to be a neutral color (equal amounts of red, green, and blue). It's safest to use a blank white card or blank white piece of paper to do this. You point the camera at the card, tell the camera to take a white balance reading, and then you're set. This is a good way of setting your white balance if you're going to be taking a number of pictures under the same lighting conditions.

Things NOT to use for a white reference when setting custom white balance: ice, walls, kleenex, your hand, something gray (unless your certain it's neutral gray), the sidewalk, etc. These are all not pure white, and that increases the odds that they're also not neutral (same amount of red, blue, and green light reflected off of them). If you use these things to set your white point you're may wind up telling the camera to misinterpret the lighting on the subject and give your picture a color cast you didn't intend.

So now that you know the white balance control is doing, let's look at your camera to see how to tell it what setting to use. Most cameras will have some if not all of the settings shown here. The icons I've used here are common to all Canon cameras.

There are typically six preset color temperature settings for you to choose from for setting your white balance: tungsten, fluorescent, daylight, flash, cloudy, and shade. These presets represent common types of light. If your scene contains multiple types of light you should normally select the white balance that corresponds to the highest color temperature light in the scene.

If you don’t want to use a preset you may have a few other options available to you: Kelvin, Auto White Balance (AWB), and Custom.

You can use the Kelvin setting to enter a color temperature number directly for the white balance setting. If you are using studio lighting where you know a lot about the lights you are using this is a reasonable way to go.

Now, most people want convenience, and convenience means not having to worry about white balance at all, right? Well, that's what auto white balance (AWB) is for. The camera will look at the scene and try to find something in the scene that is white. If it finds something it thinks is white it'll calculate the color temperature based on the amount of red, green, and blue light detected and set the white balance accordingly. It does this for each picture, so the white balance may change from frame to frame (might be a problem if you plan on composing those pictures into something else later on). It also means you run the risk of your camera not finding a white reference in the picture. When this happens it uses something else to set the white balance which usually results in inaccurate colors in the final image.

Finally, there's custom white balance. With this setting you must point the camera at something that is known to be a neutral color (equal amounts of red, green, and blue). It's safest to use a blank white card or blank white piece of paper to do this. You point the camera at the card, tell the camera to take a white balance reading, and then you're set. This is a good way of setting your white balance if you're going to be taking a number of pictures under the same lighting conditions.

Things NOT to use for a white reference when setting custom white balance: ice, walls, kleenex, your hand, something gray (unless your certain it's neutral gray), the sidewalk, etc. These are all not pure white, and that increases the odds that they're also not neutral (same amount of red, blue, and green light reflected off of them). If you use these things to set your white point you're may wind up telling the camera to misinterpret the lighting on the subject and give your picture a color cast you didn't intend.