A great picture is a record of light. Whether the picture is black and white or color, it’s the light in the picture that gets put to film (or memory card). A camera is generally pretty dumb when it comes to light. It relies on some automated sensors to tell it how much light and the quality of that light, but those sensors are part of a fluid system that can be easily fooled.

We can use that system to our advantage, however, if we take the time to really scrutinize the lighting in our picture. That means looking at shadows, evaluating hotspots, determining the best direction and measure of light, and checking for color casts in the light.

One of the easiest ways to improve the color in your picture is to understand White Balance. Let’s revisit the subject now, and I’ll explain why tinkering with your White Balance is good both in and out of the camera, and why ultimately, you may not want to settle on a “proper” white balance setting. Light comes in a variety of colors. It’s not just “white”. Tungsten light bulbs, for example, are yellow/orange in color. Flourescent bulbs are somewhat green. Daylight is blue. We know this is the case because of how these types of light reflect off a white surface… and we call this color cast the color temperature of the light. The common color temperatures are often listed in a chart, which is shown below. All temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin. Contrary to what your intuition may tell you, the higher the color temperature, the cooler the color.

Setting Your White Balance

All digital cameras contain a sensor inside which houses not only the recording surface but also a white balance sensor. This sensor attempt to detect the color temperature you’re shooting under, and adjust the White Balance setting in your camera for it. Unfortunately, there are not always ideal circumstances for the sensor to make a good call on the White Balance, especially in situations where the light is constantly changing.

For this reason alone, it’s a good idea to set your own White Balance. Most SLR cameras have a number of pre-defined values in their menu for typical shooting scenarios… like Direct Sunlight, Shade, Incandescent (Tungsten), Flourescent, etc. More modern or advanced cameras will go even further and give you a Preset option, which let’s you measure your own particular color temperature off a neutral white or grey card. This is likely the most effective method for ensuring you get proper color, but you must make sure the card you’re measuring from is neutral in color (or rather, devoid of any color cast whatsoever). Using a regular piece of white copy paper won’t produce the desired results.

By using either a predefined White Balance or by presetting your own White Balance you’re locking your camera to a value that will not change during the course of your shooting. This means you’ll not only get accurate color, but you’ll get consistent color through the shoot. You only need to worry if you relocate to different lighting conditions, at which point you’ll want to re-evaluate your White Balance and possibly change or tweak it.

Using WhiBal Cards

The above is always good advice, but you can even go a step further with White Balance cards. These cards are now offered by a variety of manufacturers, but they are most commonly referred to as WhiBal cards. They are a set of credit-card sized cards on a ring containing neutral white, black, and one or two shades of grey.

The idea is that you or your subject hold or place the cards in the first frame of whatever you’re taking a picture of. This becomes your reference frame. It’s important to remember that this reference frame needs to be shot under the same lighting conditions as you intend to shoot hereafter… so if you’re using a flash, or studio lights, they need to fire for your reference frame.

After you’ve shot your reference frame, remove the cards and continue to shoot normally until, again, you relocate to new lighting – at which time you take a new reference frame. Most post-production photography software (such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, and higher end manufacturer software) allows you to use a white balance eyedropper tool to find areas of the photo that it can use to measure from and get proper color. Click on the white card, and you should find a neutral, proper white balance – no matter what your camera’s white balance setting was set to. This works best when shooting in RAW. Additionally, you can use the black and grey cards to measure the overall tone of the image.

Satisfying Your Eye

White Balance is subjective – and while the above might get you a technically accurate white balance, it may not be to everyone’s liking. After all, that’s why film stock like Kodachrome and Fuji Velvia sold so well back in the old days… they were oversaturated, warmed up versions of reality – which is what people seem(ed) to like. We tend to remember color much more vividly then the reality of the situation… a phenomenon called memory color. We remember that apple being bright fire-engine red, and the leaves as lime green, even if the reality wasn’t quite that vivid.

If you prefer your images a little cooler, or a little warmer, that’s your artistic choice. The best way to begin, however, is always to bring the picture to it’s most accurate starting point using the above techniques and modify it from there.

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I know, you (like most of us) think we’re beyond being told how to hold an SLR camera when taking a picture. You grab it by the grip, you cradle the lens, you hold still – and you snap the shot. Nothing could be easier. In my time around photographers (and around non-photographers who happened to be holding a camera) I’ve seen a wide array of variations on the theme. Some are just minor manipulations of a popular and sound method for taking photographs, and some are just downright strange (though not always wrong).

Joe McNally is one of my favorite photographers of all time, and he has a slightly different twist to gripping the camera, which is especially useful when taking pictures using a slow shutter speed – allowing you to regain one or possible two stops when shooting.

Even the most modern camera bodies and fastest lenses will experience a lack of light at some point. Perhaps you just want a slow shutter to help create a sense of movement or flow in your shot. Whatever the reason – this is a handy tip. Unfortunately, since Joe is left-eyed, the trick doesn’t work quite as well for right-eyed folks (like me) – but like Joe says, there are elements that even we can take from this.

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Well, maybe we all jumped the gun a little with that last post, as it seems like the community surrounding JPG isn’t quite prepared to let it go that easily. As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, JPG has been having financial difficulty and was/is unable to sustain their business model as it’s currently laid out, which isn’t surprising for any dead-tree publishing operation in these harsh economic times — when everyone is staying home and reading the internet. I suspect that even a dead-tree publishing operation as clever as JPG, who takes great advantage of the internet, needs equally as clever a plan to help keep them afloat.

We do really appreciate the suggestions and offers we’ve received via email, JPG messages, Facebook messages, Twitters, blog posts, and savejpg.com– you guys are awesome. If we had known the support would be so strong, we would have reached out earlier. The good news is that this interest has bought us a little more time, so we are now looking to keep the site open at least through next week. We’ll keep you updated when we know more. – Devin Poolman

So they have a little more time to scrape something together, and possibly some prospects as the last two blog posts seem relatively hopeful.

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It’s a sad day here at Fotohacker. We’ve come to really love and appreciate the JPG Magazine website (and their beautiful publication) so much that we regularly reminded readers to submit and vote for photographs before their monthly deadline. Seems like the business model just wasn’t happening though, and JPG has made the somber decision to close their doors effective Monday, January 5th, 2009.

Initially I really enjoyed sitting at my computer clicking through photographs and judging them with a harsh YEA! or NAY! vote… and the inspiration of the JPG photo contest themes was like a school project, taunting you to get involved with the community. For many people it was a reason to get out there and take pictures, in the hopes that it would be chosen for print.

Unfortunately, a few issues dogged JPG from the beginning, not least of which was their website which made it difficult to browse photos and built a community of like-minded photographers. Having said all that, it was still hugely fun.

You will be missed, JPG. The official word is posted for prosperity after the jump.

Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.

We’ve spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we’ve reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but just weren’t able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.

The one thing we’ve been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The images on the website and in the magazine were adored by many, leaving no doubt that this community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.

Something you should likely do before their site goes down is to head over there and download all the issues in their PDF form, especially if you don’t have any of them in physical form.

You should likely also remember to bookmark their Flickr forum, which will of course remain open.

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Hello and happy 2009! We at Fotohacker have been decidedly slack lately when it comes to posting new articles… and I have to apologize. Personal life has picked up it’s pace and left me with only a slice of time with which to do other things, like blog. My New Years resolution, however, is to improve the quality and quantity of posts that appear on Fotohacker, effective immediately.

I hope everyone else had a great time over the holiday and took some beautiful shots. Let’s get hacking.

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