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Adjusting the White Balance in a Light Room With a White Dropper

White balance refers to changing the color cast in a photograph. The color cast is sometimes rendered blue, green or orange depending on the light conditions when the picture was snapped. With digital photography, fixing the white balance is as easy as downloading a photograph to your computer, balancing the color cast and printing the edited version. Software for altering photographs is available at office supply stores or computer manufacturers.

White Balance
- White balance is done to ensure that a photograph is as realistic as possible. Sometimes the white objects or the background in a photograph appear to be a different color. This includes clothing, teeth and the whites of a person's eyes. Fixing this with white balance software produces a photograph that looks exactly like the objects or people portrayed. Proper lighting reduces the need for white balance software, but having a program on your computer allows you to fix photos that weren't snapped in ideal lighting conditions.
How to Use White Balance
- To fix the white balance of a photograph, it needs to be available on your computer. Download it from your camera or mobile phone and save it. Open your photography software and upload your photo into the program. The white balance tool appears as any eyedropper on the menu. Drag the eyedropper over the photo until you find a spot that is neutral gray. When you hold the eyedropper on a specific part of the picture, a grid will appear. You will know that the area is neutral gray if you look at the bottom of the grid and the three colors, denoted by R, B, and G, are identical or almost identical in number. When you find the right neutral gray area, click on it to alter the white balance.
Benefits
- Being able to alter the white balance of your photos allows you take pictures in less than desirable lighting conditions. Nighttime shots sometimes have an orange cast when developed, but white balance creates a shot that looks realistic. This enables you to take pictures at outdoor parties, weddings and sporting events. White balance is also ideal for taking portraits because it helps prevent the whites of a person's eyes and her teeth from looking discolored, making it an effective tool for senior photos, weddings and family holiday cards.
Considerations
- Some cameras come equipped with white balance technology, particularly those sold for professional use. Refer to your camera's instruction manual to determine if it is available and how to set it up. Using this setting can help eliminate the need to use a while balance program on your computer. Some digital cameras with an automatic white balance setting may still produce a strange color cast, thereby requiring white balance in an alternate way.

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