- Adjust the White Balance controls. You can neutralize a color
cast using the White Balance controls, found in the Basic panel
on the right side of the interface. (If you see a different panel of
options, click the tab below the histogram.) Here’s how the
White Balance functions work:- By default, the White Balance pop-up menu is set to As
Shot, which loads the white balance information conveyed
by the camera. You can override this setting by choosing a
lighting condition from the pop-up menu or entering your
own Temperature and Tint values. - The Temperature value compensates for the color of the light
source, as measured in degrees Kelvin. Low-temperature
lighting such as tungsten produces a yellowish cast, so
Camera Raw “cools” the image by making it more blue.
High-temperature light such as shaded daylight produces
bluish casts, so Camera Raw “warms” the image by tilting
it toward yellow. The closest thing to neutral light is direct
sunlight, which hovers around 5500 degrees. - Tint compensates for Temperature by letting you further
adjust the colors in your image along a perpendicular color
axis. Positive values introduce a magenta cast (or remove a
green one); negative values do the opposite.
This series of images seems to require some warming, perhaps
because Chris’s daughter is climbing out of a cool blue tube or
because the images were shot on a cold, gray day. Either way, the
White Balance pop-up menu offers a series of predefined light
sources, one of which is called Cloudy. Note that this setting is
not designed to add a cloudy day effect but rather to compen-
sate for the coolness of the light on an overcast day. In other
words, choosing Cloudy makes the image warmer. Choosing
a preset that refers to a warmer light source—say Tungsten—
would cool down the image. Just remember that these settings
are about compensation.
The Temperature and Tint sliders are color-coded. For example,
raising the Temperature value makes an image more yellow and
lowering the value shifts it toward blue. But these sliders are
easier to use if you think not about the color you want to add
but the color you want to remove. If you reference “The Visible-
Color Spectrum Wheel” (page 185), you can see that less orange
equates to more cobalt, a near cousin to blue, which means we
need to reduce the Temperature value.
- By default, the White Balance pop-up menu is set to As
300 Lesson 9: Pro Photography Tools