White Balance: What Is It? Why Does It Matter? A Hands-On Workshop on Zoom!

What does “white balance” mean? It means that the color white should actually be white, the color red should be red, and every other color should be in proper balance in your image. A better name for it would really be “color filtration.”

So why should we bother or care about “white balance? Why not just leave the white balance setting on “Auto” and let the camera do the work? If it needs to be fixed, we can do it in post-production, right?

This is a workshop conducted on Zoom that will make you familiar with ALL the white balance options on your camera that will let you get it right the first time, in the camera, giving you color that accurately reflects what you are seeing with your eye. Because it is on Zoom, you can join us from any place in the world!

Did you know that most camera models give you a color chart that lets you add more red, green, blue or yellow, to any white balance setting?

Did you know that many cameras let you actually dial a **Kelvin temperature** into your camera for the most precise color?

Do you know why your snow pictures may be too blue, or “cool,” or why your indoor pictures may be too orange, or “warm?”

Do you know why pictures of people taken with a flash at night often have a white, pasty or washed-out look?

These effects are caused by using the wrong white balance. They are all our fault! But if they are our fault, we can fix them

So come to this Zoom workshop on your computer armed with your camera, any standard kit lens, your camera manual (if you can find it), a piece of white paper, and some colorful clothing, paintings, or flowers. We are conducting this Zoom workshop in the daytime so that you can get the correct white balance for pictures taken from your window on a sunny or cloudy day, pictures of your own skin tones, and pictures taken inside your closed closet lit by a single light bulb.

Washington Photo Safari Director and professional architectural photographer E. David Luria, having directed the training of over 39,000 amateur photographers since 1999, knows the white balance menus of most cameras. He will guide you through all the white balance options offered by your camera so that, in your future travels, you will be able to take better portraits of friends and family with warmer skin tones, more accurate nature photos, pictures of stained glass windows in churches, or paintings in museums that are true to their actual colors, pictures taken indoors with a flash or without a flash, or pictures taken in nighttime cityscapes, or photos of beautifully illuminated monuments and buildings.

For cameras equipped with Kelvin temperature options, he will show you how to achieve precise color correction by dialing the right temperature, so that, with practice, you will be able to gauge light temperature just by looking at a scene. If you have a smartphone with a color temperature scale, he will show you how to use that phone as a color temperature meter so that you can more easily set the right temperature in your camera, from 2,500 to 10,000!

And once he has taught you all the correct rules for white balance, he will also teach you how to break the rules for creative color options, such as making a deep blue sky on a rainy day, or a fiery red sky on a cloudy night, or creating magenta sunsets and sunrises.

In short, this 2-hour workshop will help you use color options you have paid for on your camera but may not have used, so that you are getting your money’s worth out of that expensive camera AND getting the color right the first time, in the camera!

Here is what Edd R. had to say about the Zoomfari:

“Understanding White Balance” was an excellent class. David breaks down his classes into easy to understand components.