Understanding Color Temperature :: Photos by Pru

Have you ever taken a picture, looked at your camera screen and to your shock and amazement, the people are orange? Truth is, it's happened to all of us. That orange look can be intentional but it's rarely flattering.

Light has color and every type of lighting situation creates a different mood. As I photographer I want to dictate the mood......and I want to do it in-camera. Yes I can adjust it in Lightroom or Photoshop but why give myself extra work.

Every camera, even my cell phone camera has the auto white balance option as well as preset options for the most common types of lighting scenarios like flourescent, incandesent, etc.

My latest and greatest addiction is making custom adjustments to white balance by changing the Kelvin temperature in my camera to reflect the look that I'm going for. This picture shows why adjusting the Kelvin temperature matters.