How I Check My White Balance as a Photo Editor

It was dark. And cold.

And they’d just fed us a delicious lunch.

The inspirational video was an old cartoon from the 1950's that was a feature-length movie.

I could feel my eyelids fighting a good fight with gravity.

“Stay awake, Erika,” I kept telling myself in my head. Not entirely effective, but I tried.

I REALLY tried.

I was attending a company function where my introverted personality was trying hard to connect with extrovert people in the company. It was a long day!

The banquet hall where they served lunch was very cold and became very dark once they turned on the video. With my belly full and my sweater wrapped tightly around me, I was falling asleep—and to my horror, I couldn't stop it.😴

Did my manager see me with my eyes closed?

I don’t think so. I hope not. Uh, she didn’t mention it. Maybe she was fighting the same battle with her eyelids too?🥶

And maybe YOU fight this same battle with your eyeballs after a marathon photo editing session with your laptop, cozy on the sofa in the dark of night?

Ah-ha, I see you there!

When your eyes want to put up the “closed” sign but you've got to finish editing this gallery tonight, you might find things like white balance start to look a little more complicated.

Could you use a little help? I got you!

First, you need the keyboard shortcut for the White Balance selector tool in Lightroom. Just tap the “W” key on your keyboard.

I learned this technique from my friend and fellow photo editor, Nina Cornelison. It really helps when you're second-guessing yourself on white balance.

This technique uses this tool a little differently to check white balance than if you were actually using this tool to fix the white balance.

Step 1

Find somewhere in the photo that is white—or is supposed to be white.

Step 2

Hover the white balance selector tool in the area that should be white.

Step 3

Look at your RGB numbers that the white balance selector tool shows for that area. If the numbers are close to the same—within 2-3 points—then the white balance is good and very close to neutral.

If you see that one of the numbers isn’t close to the others, you may need to increase or decrease the tint or temperature sliders to reach a more neutral white balance.

If you don’t have white in the photo, you could try black or gray but I’ve found that white works best.

Alright, sleepy head. Maybe you can close those eyelids a bit sooner.

Happy editing,

Erika