We recently surveyed our photography community, and one of the top things photographers said they struggle with when editing is white balance. White balance is a crucial yet often overlooked setting that ensures the colors in your images appear natural and true to life, and it can also be used creatively to create mood in an image using color temperature. Whether you're shooting indoors under warm tungsten lighting or outside on a cloudy day, understanding how to control white balance can make all the difference in achieving professional-quality results.

We’re going to break down the basics of white balance, explain how different light sources affect your images, and provide practical tips for getting perfect color every time—whether in-camera or in post-processing. Let’s dive in and take control of your color accuracy!

What is white balance?

According to Adobe, in digital photography, white balance is the adjustment of a digital photograph to make its colors appear more realistic.

In the broader sense, all light has different color temperatures we perceive visually, and the camera perceives them and assigns number values to them based on how cool or warm the light appears on the spectrum. This value is measured in Kelvin (or K). A cool white balance in photography is lower in number, like 2500 K, and a warmer white balance is higher, like 7500 K*.

Different light scenarios have different color temperatures, for example:

Candlelight (~1900K) – very warm, orange
Tungsten lightbulbs (~3200K) – warm, yellow-orange
Daylight (~5500K) – neutral white
Cloudy (~6500K) – cool, bluish tones
Shade (~7500K+) – very cool, deep blue tones

*Technically, it’s the opposite for the color temperature of light, but for photography, we are using white balance to counteract the temperature the camera picks up, so for the purposes of this explanation, lower is cooler, and higher is warmer, because it’s easier to remember when you’re dialing in your camera or editing white balance settings.

Setting White Balance in Camera

Some light scenarios are set up as preset white balance values in your camera (similar to the ones set up in Lightroom).
Every camera has a different white balance menu, but here are some of the common white balance scenes:

You can change your white balance as you’re photographing based on the scene (so, if you’re photographing on a cloudy day, try changing the white balance to “cloudy” or even “shade”), or make a custom Kelvin white balance if you have a good sense for reading the light temperature by eye, or if the camera’s preset WB scene isn’t warm or cool enough for your specific situation.

Of course, you can use Auto WB in camera, but typically that means every one of your photos will have a slightly different white balance from each other, and unless you sync the white balance when editing, your photos won’t look cohesive.

**This image was taken on a cloudy day, so a white balance preset of Cloudy works well (6500 K)**

Cloudy or 6500 K white balance keeps the subjects’ skin tone warm and natural looking, neutralizing the slightly cooler light temperature from the overcast sky.
Image by Mariola Zoladz
Edited with Light & Truth

**This image was taken by candlelight, which is very warm, so a white balance of around 2900 K works well**

For very warm light like candlelight, which appears very orange, you can use a much lower Kelvin temperature white balance (or in editing, shift the Temp slider towards the left, blue side). Don’t go as far as to remove all the character of the natural light— it would be unnatural for candlelight not to retain a bit of warmth!
Image by Foggy Stories
Edited with Limited Release Veritas Presets

Editing White Balance in Lightroom

To get a quick look at the different white balance options in Lightroom, click next to WB:, above the Temp slider, for the list. It might say Auto, As Shot, or Custom when you click it. Try the different white balance presets on your photos for a good starting point, and adjust Temp and Tint by eye from there!

Don’t discount the Auto WB option when editing (it can be way better than the Auto WB in camera)! Sometimes this can give you a great baseline if your eye isn’t accurate enough to discern the right values by hand adjusting the Temp and Tint sliders.

Tip: Use the eyedropper tool next to the WB sliders to select a neutral area in your photo for Lightroom to automatically compute a good neutral white balance for your image. This can help correct color casts you might not even notice! See video below.

If you don’t nail your white balance in-camera, or if you need to adjust the Kelvin warmer or cooler than the limit the camera allows, you can do it after the fact in Lightroom! Photographing in RAW gives you so much flexibility with the image after you’ve taken it, and white balance is one of those advantages RAW has over photographing in JPEG!

The image below is a beach scene, which should be warm due to the environment and time of day, but it was photographed on the cooler side at 5800 K. Raising the white balance to closer to 9000 K gives the warm vibes of the beach at golden hour.

How does Tint play into White Balance?

In photography, while temperature (measured in Kelvin) shifts an image between warm (yellow/orange) and cool (blue) tones, tint fine-tunes the balance between green and magenta.

Some light sources, like fluorescent bulbs, can introduce an unwanted greenish cast, while some sunset or incandescent lighting may add too much magenta. When you photograph around a lot of green foliage, that green color can add a color cast to the skin and clothing of your subjects, as well. Adjusting the tint slider in your camera settings or editing software helps neutralize these color shifts for more accurate skin tones and overall color balance.

Together, temperature and tint work hand-in-hand to ensure that whites look truly white and colors remain true to life, making them essential for achieving professional, natural-looking images.

In the image before and after below, straight out of camera the Temp was 5900 K and the Tint was +6. After adjustments, the Temp looks more natural at 7500 K and the Tint at +30. Don’t be afraid to use the eyedropper tool or Auto WB to help you see the color casts!

Using White Balance Creatively

White balance isn’t just for color accuracy—it’s also a powerful creative tool! By intentionally adjusting white balance, you can shape the mood, enhance storytelling, and create unique visual effects in your images. Here are some creative ways to use white balance in your photography:

Enhance the warm golden glow of sunsets, candlelit portraits, or cozy indoor scenes by using a higher Kelvin setting.
Make things moody or imitate night time light by cooling down your white balance, using a lower Kelvin setting.
Mimic film stocks by imitating classic film’s signature warmth or coolness, as well as tint.
Embrace mixed lighting and instead of correcting different light sources, use their natural color shifts for a cinematic effect!
Experiment with complementary colors by balancing opposite tones in your scene: like keeping a cool blue hour white balance so warm city lights pop by comparison.
Create surreal or dreamy images with extreme white balance shifts— think of movies like Blade Runner 2049 with its otherworldly cool city scenes or warm, dusty deserts.

In the image below, a warm white balance makes the scene look cozy, and warm, while a cooler white balance really highlights the warm glow of the candles against the cool, chilly outdoors.

Making White Balance Adjustments with Presets

We generally advise making exposure and white balance corrections before applying our presets— that way, you can see how the presets affect your image without color casts or incorrect exposure altering the image too much, and you can tweak those things more after applying the preset as needed.

That said, there are often times you might want to use a specific preset on a perfectly exposed and white balanced image, and find the preset gives your image too warm or cool a hue. You can make white balance adjustments to get your photo exactly how you like it, even after applying the preset!

Editing is totally subjective, so in the image above, you might want the cool blue mood of the image without the WB adjustments, or prefer a slightly warmer, neutral look.

Black and White Edits

You might not think white balance is necessary to worry about for black and white edits— but that’s not true! Most black and white presets use the colors in the image before B&W conversion to create subtle shifts in grayscale, white, and blacks, and since white balance affects those colors, it also affects the black and white edit!

In the image below, the white balance of the first/left image was adjusted all the way to the left, at 2000 K, while the second/right image was set all the way to the right, at 50,000 K. Observe the significant contrast difference, especially in the shadows! Ensure you adjust the white balance even for your black-and-white edits to achieve the exact effect you desire!

By learning how to balance warm and cool tones, embrace mixed lighting, or even push white balance beyond its conventional use, you can elevate your images and develop a signature style. So next time you photograph, don’t just set it and forget it—play around, experiment, and see how white balance can transform your work!

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