White balance

White balance corrects the overall color cast of an image so that things which should be neutral — a white shirt, grey concrete — actually read as neutral. Cameras disagree with your eye about what “white” is: household bulbs push an image orange, shade pushes it blue. White balance runs on two axes: temperature (blue ↔ orange) and tint (green ↔ magenta). Getting it right early makes every later decision easier, because you stop fighting a cast you didn’t notice.

First used in: 1.1 · Meet the image