The human eye is an amazing thing in so many ways, and cameras work so hard to try to replicate it. However, no matter how much money you invest into your fancy new camera, the truth is that it will never equal the versatility of the eye. No matter what color of light nature throws us, the human eye converts it into a seemingly white balance. Of course, extreme color shifts are noticed, but more subtle shifts in color go pretty much unnoticed. For instance, we can be in our living room at night with only light bulbs to light the room and our eye sees that light as white. In reality, the color is very red (warm). We can walk on a beach before dawn and our eyes will once again balance to white, but if you took out your camera and took a picture, the scene would be very blue (cool).

Color Temperature
This all has a very technical explanation, but for the sake of simplicity, just know that the basic color temperature (Kelvin scale) runs from red to white to blue. So what light sources tend to the warm (red) side? Candlelight, tungsten light bulbs, sunrise, and sunset. White? High noon and electronic flash. What about cool (blue) tones? Overcast days, open shade, early morning or evening, and indirect window light. That is the color scale for most light; however, there are artificial light sources that will turn all sorts of funky colors. Vapor lights will glow greenish yellow. Some pulse green and magenta. From a photographer's perspective, all these variables are tricky.

Your camera does have a white balance, similar to the human eye, and sometimes it does a pretty good job. However, if you get into a mixed light situation, you get some pretty bizarre color shifts. For instance, if you were in that room at night with only light bulbs to light the room and then you used your flash, you would see some rich colors. The flash is white, but the light in the background will be very red.

 

Color and Emotion
So how do you make all this work to your advantage? Color has all kinds of emotional tie ins. Blue tends to trigger a cold or moody feeling, while red and yellow are hot and full of hope. Your job as a photographer is to know how your camera will read those lights and make a decision how you want it to record. You can turn on your White Balance and try to bring it back to white. You can intentionally let that old tired building go blue to give a sense of cold and decay. You can let your portrait session go reddish to play up the heat. Don't ever let your camera make the call for you. Be in control and create your own work of art.

 

Camera Settings
Most cameras have different settings that correspond to color correction or white balance. They are normally illustrated with abbreviations or symbols.

Auto: Attempts to white balance any shot
Daylight: Adds a little blue
Shade: Adds red or yellow to warm up a photo taken in open shade
Cloudy: Similar to Shade but a different level of red is added
Custom: If you really want to control the tone you can set it anywhere from cool to warm
Flash: If you are using an external flash
White Fluorescent: Adds magenta to counter a green tint
Tungsten Bulb: Adds blue to counter a reddish light bulb

You can shift to one of these settings to instantly see the difference in tone. Use them to your advantage. Sometimes AWB isn't always what you intended to do. Ever photograph a gorgeous sunset and have your camera try to neutralize the tones? If you were set to AWB, your camera sees all that red and try to compensate to bring it back to white. .

 

Look Around
As an experiment today, try to really watch the color of light as your day progresses. Pro photographers get very good at reading the subtle nuances. You can too. Notice the warm glow of morning and the white hot quality of high noon. See how blue it looks in the deep shade and watch it creep back to deep blue at twilight. You will be surprised at how good you can get at it. Besides, it's a nice way to look at the world around you. Take the time to notice, and you will be that much better as a photographer.

 

Using Motophoto's Online Prints
Ever had red eye ruin a great photo? Well, don't let that happen again. Use our red eye removal tool to restore people's eyes back to their natural color. In your account, click "My Web Photos," select the image to edit, click the "Edit" button, and choose "Edit/Crop Photo" from the list. This will open the editing tools. Choose the "Red Eye" option from the left and adjust the red eye as needed.