White balance (WB) is a setting that corrects the colour temperature of different light sources, ensuring whites appear neutral rather than influenced by a colour cast. While your brain automatically adjusts to see white as white under any lighting, your camera records the actual colour, unless you tell it otherwise.
Every light source has a colour temperature, measured in Kelvin. Warm candlelight with an orange glow is about 1,800K, while tungsten bulbs with a yellow-orange cast are 3,400K. Daylight at noon is around 5,500K and appears neutral white, while cooler overcast skies can be 6,500K and shade is 8,000K. There are creative reasons why you may want to warm up or cool down tones, but often, you’ll simply want to neutralise unwanted colour casts, whether shooting under midday sun or…
