Canon EOS 6D: From Snapshots to Great Shots

4. Set Your White Balance

White balance correction is the process of rendering accurate colors in your final image. A light source emits a certain color cast. For example, a sunrise emits a warm color cast (which generally involves yellows and oranges), whereas sunlight on an overcast day emits a colder, or bluish, tone. The white balance setting on your camera attempts to equal out this color cast and produce a more balanced image.

When you select a white balance, you are selecting changes in the color temperature of your frame, which is measured along the Kelvin (K) temperature scale. Kelvin temperatures refer to colors in the visible spectrum. The visible spectrum is the range of light that the human eye can see (think of a rainbow or the ...