Even the most experienced photographers can overlook how light affects the look and feel of a photo. Simply adjusting white balance can completely change the tone of an image. Whether your photos look too cool, too warm or just off, learning to master white balance helps your staff capture color that’s true to life and ready for print.
Why White Balance Matters
Every light source has its own color temperature. Fluorescent lights often give off greenish tones, while sunsets bring out deep oranges and reds. Your camera doesn’t automatically know how to interpret these differences. That’s where white balance comes in – it tells your camera what “white” should look like under the given lighting so that every other color falls into place.
Try It Out
In this week’s Timely Tips activity, students will explore how to recognize and adjust white balance for different environments. Using classroom lights, window light and outdoor settings, they’ll test camera modes such as Auto, Daylight, Cloudy and Custom. By comparing results, they’ll learn how subtle shifts affect color accuracy and mood.
Encourage your staff to:
- Experiment: Capture the same scene using multiple white balance settings.
- Observe: Note how temperature shifts affect skin tones and backgrounds.
- Apply: Use what they learn when photographing portraits, events and sports to ensure colors stay consistent throughout the book.
What Are Timely Tips?
Timely Tips are ready-to-use lesson plans created to help advisers teach a variety of topics using a range of activities that engage a wide range of learners. Each resource includes a class starter, step-by-step activity and discussion prompts that can fit easily into a single class period. They’re perfect for giving your staff hands-on experience and practical skills they can apply right away.
You can use Timely Tips as a stand-alone activity, part of your weekly staff training or a quick way to fill unexpected downtime with something productive.
