A technically perfect white balance doesn’t make a perfect landscape photo

 

 

White balance is a very important component of any color photograph. One of the best reasons for shooting RAW, for example, is that you have full control over white balance when processing your images without degrading your file. It's often the case that you want to have a neutral white balance for some types of photography, with landscape images, sometimes it's more about creating a mood or emotion with color than perfectly representing a scene's actual lighting at the time of capture.

In the video below, Nigel Danson discusses how setting your white balance can be as much a creative process as a technical one. A "correct" white balance can end up looking a bit drab. If you want to accentuate warm or cold tones in an image, you might have to exaggerate the color temperature of a given scene. A perfect gray in your scene doesn't mean much if the final print is dull and lacks an emotional punch.

(Via Nigel Danson)