White balance
Also known as: color temperature, WB, auto white balance, AWB
White balance is the camera setting that adjusts colors so white objects look white under different lighting. It corrects the color temperature of a scene — warm orange indoor light or cool blue shade — so photos and videos look natural instead of tinted.
- Corrects color casts from different light sources
- Measured as color temperature in kelvin
- Adjustable losslessly later only when shot in RAW
Why colors shift between lights
Different light sources have different color temperatures, measured in kelvin: candlelight and tungsten bulbs are warm (orange), midday sun is neutral, and shade or overcast skies are cool (blue). Your eyes adapt automatically, but a camera sensor records the actual tint unless it is told to compensate.
White balance rebalances the red, green, and blue channels so a neutral reference — a white wall, a gray card — comes out neutral. Get it wrong and skin tones go orange or sickly blue; get it right and the scene looks the way you remember it.
Auto vs manual
Most phone cameras use auto white balance (AWB), which guesses the light source and corrects on the fly. It works well in steady, single-source lighting but can drift in mixed light or against large blocks of color.
Shooting in RAW records the raw sensor data with white balance stored as adjustable metadata, so you can set it precisely afterward with no quality loss. A baked-in JPEG or HEIC locks the chosen balance into the pixels.