White Balance for Landscape Photographs – Part 1: Sunlight from Michael Frye on Vimeo.

My recent critique of Mark Wilburn’s dogwood photograph prompted a lively discussion about white balance, so this seemed like a good topic for a more in-depth treatment. I’ve created three videos on white balance for landscape photographs, and here’s part one, which looks at images with sunlight, including sunrises and sunsets. Part two will discuss photographs captured in the shade, and part three will present solutions to a common problem in landscape photographs—finding the right white balance when mixing low-angle sunlight with blue sky.

In all of these videos I discuss what I think is the key to setting color temperature—finding a good balance between warm and cool colors, and preserving the vibrance of all the individual hues.

To see this video clearly, be sure that “HD” is on (the letters “HD” should be white instead of gray; if not, click on them), and click the “expand” icon just to the right of “HD.” Once you’ve expanded you might want to turn Scaling off if you have a big monitor.

As I mentioned yesterday, my new eBook will discuss my entire workflow in depth. I’ll post more details soon.