# White Balance and Color Tint



## alaios (Apr 8, 2015)

Dear all, I am trying to understand the white balance slider and the color tint slider below it. The first one goes from blue to yellow and the second one from green to pink (why?)  I am trying to understand how I can find which one I should try to slide? Why the white balance slider alone does not suffice.  Lets say that I shoot at a room where walls are yellowish and I want to bounce my flash there (that would give to my flash light a yellow tint)... I also have no grey card on that date. which slider I should try to reduce to remove the yellowish tint?  Regards Alex


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## davidedric (Apr 8, 2015)

To answer part of your question.

The "white balance" sets "temperature".  It tracks a line through the colour space which represents the wavelength of light emitted by a "black body" as it is warmed up.  The "color tint" slider tracks a second line, approximately at right angles to the first.  Hence using the two together allows you to position your white point anywhere in the colour space.

I'll leave better photographers than I to answer the rest. 

Dave


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## Tony Jay (Apr 8, 2015)

Dave is on the right track.
In colour theory yellow and blue are exactly opposite.
Magenta (pink) and green are also exactly opposite.
The two axes of colour referred to above are exactly at right angles to one another.
In a three-dimensional gamut plot where these two axes intersect has exactly neutral tones with white at the top and black at the bottom.

Although, most of the time, our colour (or white balance) issues are along the yellow-blue axis, it is entirely possible that adjustment along the magenta-green axis is also required to bring a known neutral tone to true neutrality.

In practical terms if true neutrality is needed for a particular tone then using the eyedropper tool is what one should use instead of adjustments to the white balance to the tint sliders. 
These sliders are better used for occasions where a creative change in white balance is being envisaged i.e. where a non-neutral white balance is the goal.

Tony Jay


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