White Balance

Example: "He set his camera's white balance to tungsten lighting while he took pictures indoors."

White balance is a setting available on most digital cameras and camcorders that defines how the color white should appear in the current lighting conditions. A correct white balance setting prevents images from having a certain hue cast over the image, such as the greenish color caused by fluorescent lights. Most devices include an auto white balance (AWB) feature, which automatically adjusts the white balance when taking pictures and recording video. Some digital cameras and camcorders also include selectable white balance presets for different types of lighting.

If you've already imported a bunch of pictures that have a strange hue over them, it is most likely because the white balance was not set properly. Fortunately, most modern image editing applications include color adjustment tools that can remove these hues.

Updated: August 11, 2010