I was over my brothers and ended up photographing my his cat - I was using my new lens a Canon 50mm f1.8 - I was putting it thru it is paces and when I got home - even though I had it on Auto White Balance the photos just didn't look right - they were too yellowish.

I wanted to get the natural color of the CK (CrazyKitty) so, I knew I had to play with the White Balance in Photoshop. I have done this before and decided to share this info with you readers.

I then did some searching and found the articles listed in the additional resources about White Balancing (Color Correcting) your Photos.

The articles are pretty interesting and very useful article on how to take a photo and make sure you get the correct colors you are seeing and not how the camera "Sees It".

In the Second article listed it shows the a list of some of the normal light sources and gives you their color temperature in K (Kelvin)
Basically the Lower(cooler temp) the number, such as a Candle Flame (1200K) or a 75-Watt Bulb (2,820K) the Warmer the color will become (More Yellowish)

You see this effect on my Photo on the left below (I shot this without flash under a 100 Watt Light Bulb).

The Higher the number (Higher Temp) Such as an Electronic Flash (5,400K) or a Clear Blue Sky (10,000K) the more Blueish (Cooler Colors) the photo becomes.

You can use many different program to current the white balance (Correct the Color Temperature) of the photo.

Several will allow you to to use the eye dropper tool to point to what should be White/Grey/Black in the photo and automatically adjust the rest of the photo accordingly for you.

Photoshop has a great tool for auto adjusting white balance. This is detailed in the bottom two articles.

My photos I took are here:

Original / Corrected

Please leave comments - and Don't forget to post some of your samples so we all can learn and share our techniques.

Additional Resources:
Understanding White Balance
What is White Balance
Photoshop - Color Balance Using Levels
Photoshop - Correcting White Balance

Have a Great Weekend.
DigitalAlan

Tags: Digital, Camera, Color, Photoshop, DIY, Hack, Technique, Tutorial, Art, Photography, Photo