Wrong white balance on purpose?

[j-digg]

Was just reading a photog. book and there was a random tip to purposely use the wrong white balance while taking a dawn landscape picture to give it a "blue morning" feel to it. My question is if anyone ever uses this technique, or uses the "wrong" white balance in any other situations to give an image a certain effect? Examples?

 

[Garbz]

Certainly.

White balance set to Tungsten, Flash shot through a CTO Gel. Creates an interesting effect balancing the subject's colour against the background daylight.

 

[jlykins]

I use that technique a lot at dusk with a full CTO gel on flash. Makes a otherwise "boring" sunset turn beautiful while lighting the subject with a natural looking light. Hell I sometimes do two layers of CTO to give them a nice warm glow...

 

[dcclark]

I almost always shoot night shots in Tungsten mode, to give the sky a blue color (which our eyes tell us is "natural"). I also use shady/cloudy balance all the time to warm up a variety of bright-sun shots.

I'd say -- white balance is another artistic choice which you can make, so you may as well use it!

 

[Battou]

I used opposite here, I used a warmer white balence on this to push the amber and exadgerate the late feel.

I took that forever ago, I forgot how bad that picture was overall, I wish I could reshoot that without all the extra crap in it but

 

[Big Mike]

I shoot in RAW and adjust the WB to whatever I think looks good...so yes, there are times when I use a WB that isn't 'correct'.

 

[j-digg]

Thanks for the great responses everyone, very interesting shots Garbz .

 

[JerryPH]

Thanks for the great responses everyone, very interesting shots Garbz .

Yeah, no one messes with da Snoopstah. :lmao:

There are times that I purposefully try out even weird things like a green gel on one flash and an orange gel on the other. One side of the pic looks green, the other orange, and in the middle, where the lights overlap on the subject, they cancel each other out and we get a natural looking WB.

 

[LokiZ]

I fall into the catagory of using the incorrect WB on occasions. Many times in the raw editing/adjusting stage I use the eye dropper if I am trying for very unnatural effect which preset WB setting fail to give me. It's sometimes just as much fun as working to make the image exectly as ones eye saw it. (sometimes)

Of course I cannot tell a lie either... there are also occasions when I forget to set the WB correctly and use the same method to get back to what it should have been in the first place.

 

[j-digg]

Yeah, no one messes with da Snoopstah. :lmao:

There are times that I purposefully try out even weird things like a green gel on one flash and an orange gel on the other. One side of the pic looks green, the other orange, and in the middle, where the lights overlap on the subject, they cancel each other out and we get a natural looking WB.

Heyy.. now that sounds fun Jerry.... now alls I need is a couple flashes and multiple gels

 

[inTempus]

I shoot in RAW and adjust the WB to whatever I think looks good...so yes, there are times when I use a WB that isn't 'correct'.

Yeah, I leave my camera (perhaps wrongly so) mostly in AWB mode. I think thinker with various WB settings post shoot in Lightroom.

 

[rufus5150]

White balance is a creative decision.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Yeah, no one messes with da Snoopstah. :lmao:

There are times that I purposefully try out even weird things like a green gel on one flash and an orange gel on the other. One side of the pic looks green, the other orange, and in the middle, where the lights overlap on the subject, they cancel each other out and we get a natural looking WB.

Sorry, but I'm confused here, Jerry. Generally I wouldn't dare bring something to question with you, but wouldn't you need either blue to cancel out orange, or magenta to cancel out green? When you shoot on tungsten, your camera adds blue to cancel out the amber light, and when you shoot on fluorescent, you're camera adds magenta to cancel out the green light. Is there something I'm missing here?

 

[JerryPH]

When you shoot on tungsten, your camera adds blue to cancel out the amber light, and when you shoot on fluorescent, you're camera adds magenta to cancel out the green light. Is there something I'm missing here?

Easy.. I shoot in auto WB (not tungsten as you suggest), and touch the WB control for natural face/skin tone in ACR. It does work out nicely... give it a try!

 

[Guido44]

Like this.

1st photo in the Gallery