Deanna and Ben | Plus White Balance Cool vs Warm

Last week I worked with  Deanna and Ben to get some fun outdoor winter shots.  The afternoon was quite cool but the setting sun and broken clouds provided nice warm light at such a cold time of the season.  Here are a few pics from that shoot with a comparison of two specific photographs that use different white balance editing.  See below...

What is "White Balance"?  Well basically all light is made of different color.  The proper amount of light in a picture is what makes a correct exposure.  So basically light is what makes a photograph so you can imagine how important the color of light can be.  Have you ever noticed when the sun sets everything seems very warm and yellow and/or orange?  Or in the morning when rays of pink hit the sky?  Those are examples of natural color temperature.  Perhaps you have used your camera indoors and noticed the exposure turns out yellow?  Or peoples skin take on a greenish hue under fluorescent lighting.  Again, similar but artificial color temperatures.

Your camera, the same as mine, has a white balance setting.  I choose to set mine on AUTO and correct or enhance it in the post production phase.  At this shoot I also used two off camera flashes which are balanced to bright sun daylight temperature.  So I get a mixture of two different color temps which can be good or bad.  In this case good ;)

WARM lighting naturally and enhanced in PS Lightroom

In this first photograph you will notice how full of sun and warm it feels.  The warmth gives you that nice feeling you get while looking into a nice summer sunset.  I moved my WB slider to create this more extreme effect.  It's so warm though that you lose a lot of other colors that linger in the photograph below.

COOL lighting slightly enhanced in PS Lightroom

 This cool looking pic is missing that warm feeling but I think is a beautiful photograph with lots of color.  It is much closer to the realistic colors at the present time. There are still hints of yellow and warmth near the sun but they quickly morph into a variety of blues and purples once in the shade.  Their skin tones are still natural and slightly warm so as not to appear dead!  This is where controlling the light I put on them comes in handy.  This trick could be further enhanced with an orange warming gel placed over the flash then balancing again COOLER which would further bring out deep blues in the background.

Which edit do you prefer?  Cool or Warm?

Here are some others from the shoot....