White balance can be an intricate art: getting it just right (or wrong) can have dramatic ramifications for editing. Here’s how you can adjust it on your phone pictures for optimal results.
No matter what camera or photo editing app you use, getting the white balance right in Lightroom is essential to creating photos with consistent edit styles.
How white balance in Lightroom Works
White Balance can be found under the Color tab, and has two components: temp (for temperature) and tint. Temperature refers to how different light sources affect its temperature range — for instance blue light sources have higher temperatures than yellow lights.
Tint refers to a scale from green to magenta that’s determined by the quality of light source (primarily what material or surface it’s reflecting from).
How to Adjust White Balance in Lightroom
Lightroom provides an easy way for photographers to set their white balance according to conditions like cloudy or sunny, using its drop-down menu. While auto does a decent job of matching, in my experience most photos require further adjustments for optimal white balance results.
Auto can sometimes produce terrible photos. If this is the case for you, As Shot may be your best bet – provided you remember to change the white balance when transitioning from shooting outside to indoor scenes!
Click and drag your puck cursor over an area of neutral gray in your image that you wish to isolate; aim for something light gray like the 18% gray card; Lightroom will then read your color data automatically and set a custom white balance setting that matches this spot exactly.
Play around, compare and practice If the first shot doesn’t provide the results that you expect, take several more attempts until finding an image with skin tones that look lifelike as your guide. Prioritize skin tones over any other factors when setting white balance.
