Article Review 1

Magazine:Popular Photography
Issue: November 2008
Article: White Balancing Act

This article is about not knowing about WB images and how it can ruin your images. Learning the manual controls and all the other controls on the camera is the key step to having successful photos. Digital cameras offer White Balance presets for certain conditions. Accuracy of color is not as critical as in nature photography but it may be in other commercial work. Since color temperature will range from day to day these differences will produce casts in light that don't match the preset on the camera.

Then it went on to describe some tips for nature shots. The first tip was to avoid auto white balance. Color can be used effectively to create a certain mood in the photo. Setting your camera to WB can eliminate some of these effects resulting in a successful image. Its always best to set the camera to Wb individually for every scene. The second tip is to shoot RAW and adjust the WB later. Capturing the images in RAW mode other than JPEG. This has the added advantage of letting you choose a WB setting while being able to process the images at home.

The third tip was to use histograms for the best detail. Most digital cameras use separate red, green and blue filters and they determine the color and the quality of the image. The filters also make up some of how detailed the image may look. Each of these filters or sensors has a limited range of values. The WB setting determines the way readings from these channels are blended. And the last tip was to blend multiple WB settings. White Balance affects the whole image so that is why you can blend separate versions of the same image that are converted from RAW using different White Balance settings.