White Balance and Light

I’ve talked before about the advantages of shooting RAW, especially for listing photos.  One of the big advantages is the ability to change the white balance.

White Balance Auto

Most of us don’t want to have to think about the light in which we are shooting.  We move in and out from indoor, outdoor, cloudy, shade and direct sunlight.  We set our camera to White Balance Auto and let the camera make the decision for us.  Sometimes it guesses WRONG.

If you are shooting RAW you can change the White Balance in post processing.  If it guesses wrong and you are shooting in JPG, there is no going back, that white shirt that appears Yellow can’t be made white like it was.  There is no “Bleach” brush to paint on the shirt.  It is possible to tweak it with a little or a lot of work, but why.  Shoot RAW and it isn’t an issue.

Shooting Indoors in Mixed Light

But what do you do when you are shooting a listing and the room has three or more kinds of light?  There are choices to be made.  I’ll give you some tips on what to look for and things you can do when shooting indoors in mixed light in the next post.

Tags: mixed light sources, Shooting RAW, white balance