Lighting and photo criticism request

[gossamer]

Forgot an important tip! When shooting portraits outdoors with one flash put a warming gel over it. Here is a way to change background color using a flash and colored gels.
Just One More Flash – KelbyOne
and here again:

Thanks so much for your kind words. It wasn't always so easy to get her to smile It came from many years of practice. We're also not beyond a bribe

So I watched the whole video, and actually have the orange plastic thing that goes over my SB-700, but this video failed to explain why/how it supposedly makes the pictures better.

How does it affect my white balance?

 

[smoke665]

How does it affect my white balance

Not a big fan of Kelby. All light has a color "temperature". It can be confusing, here's some examples and where they stand.

In a nutshell when you're outside your ambient light "temperature" may or not be equal to your flash temp. As you can see even a moderately overcast day can be far away from your flash in terms of color. Using a CTO (orange) gel on your flash or CTB (blue) gel in combination with camera WB setting will adjust the color temperature of the scene to a more pleasing match. Heres one of the easiest to understand articles Ive found on their use. How to Use CTO and CTB Gels to Change the Color of Your Background

 

[rambler]

Great article, esp. the demos. Thanks, Smoke665