So far we’ve covered most of the fundamentals on how to shoot your camera by adjusting aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, but today, we’ll be talking about white balance.  It has nothing to do with how the camera focuses, how blurry the background will be, or how bright an image will turn out, but it’s still one the most important settings that you should always make sure to account for when out for a shoot.
White balance has to do with what’s known as the color temperature of a picture.  Colors can be warm {more yellows and oranges} or cool {more blues and greens}.  When the white balance is left in automatic mode {usually denoted by AWB}, the camera sometimes has a hard time determining the proper color temperature to use in various lighting situations so it often times under/overcompensates and makes your photos either too cool or too warm, making colors {especially whites and skin tones} look very unnatural.

The color temperature is too cool.  Notice how any white/skin tone areas have an unnatural bluish tone to them.

The color temperature is too warm.  Notice how any white/skin tone areas have an unnatural orangish/yellow tone to them.

To avoid your photos turning out too warm or too cool, take your camera out of auto white balance mode and instead, set your white balance mode to match whichever lighting condition your subject is in.  If you’re in the sun, set it to “Sunny/Daylight” mode, if you’re in the shade, set it to the “Shade” mode, and if it’s cloudy, set it to the “Cloudy” mode.  There’s even specific modes for indoor shooting as well to deal with fluorescent vs. tungsten lighting.  By adjusting the white balance manually, you can ensure that the colors will turn out just the way you want them as seen in the picture below.

The color temperature is just right.

Thanks for reading!