Should you check your White Balance or Exposure?

Achieving perfectly balanced images

In all the years I have been teaching digital photography, this question is one of the most common ones I get asked: “When a photo does not look right, should I check the white balance or the exposure?”

In this article I will discuss the answer to this question. Let’s begin with a few definitions.

Exposure is the brightness and contrast in a photo. A correct exposure is one that provides enough brightness and contrast of the scene, somewhat close to what our human eyes can see.

White Balance controls the rendition of the colours. If the colour in your photos appears off and doesn’t look right, you need to check the white balance setting.

If the photo is too dark or too bright and lacks contrast, look to the exposure as the reason why. If you don’t already do this, I encourage you to get into the habit of using your Histogram to help you to judge the exposure precisely.

On the other hand, if the colours are not correct, for example too yellow or blue (Colour Cast), this is due to an incorrect white balance setting.

Keep in mind that most of the time an under exposed picture can show a blue cast so my suggestion is to check the exposure first and make sure it is correct and then check and adjust the white balance.