Sorting out White Balance problems

Q One of the joys of my current digital camera is that it offers several colour temperatures, although I only use two – daylight and tungsten.

My problem is that I sometimes forget to switch between them and end up with indoor photos taken in daylight that are very yellow, and vice versa, outdoor photos that are very hard with a bluish tinge.

Once downloaded to the PC I have played with altering things to try to get them right and wondered if you could advise on what correction method would be best (I use Photoshop).
Steve Burrows

A This is a straightforward colour correction issue that can easily be fixed.

If you were using film, you would use colour correction filters to enable you to use film balanced for daylight or tungsten light in the ‘wrong’ conditions.

An 85b orange filter allows you to use tungsten film in daylight and an 80a is used when shooting in tungsten lighting with daylight-balanced film.

You can do the same thing restrospectively in Photoshop to correct images shot using the wrong colour balance settings.

Select Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter and use the Warming Filter (85) to correct photos shot outdoors on a tungsten white balance setting and the Cooling Filter (80) for shots taken indoors with a daylight white balance setting.

If the colour balance still isn’t quite right, change the density setting in the photo filter dialogue box to apply more or less correction, or you can apply the filter as an adjustment layer and reduce the layer opacity.

Alternatively, if you shoot using the Raw format, you retain all the file information. So if your white balance is wrong, you can correct it by simply adjusting the colour temperature in Photoshop.