White balance and auto-levels

mercphoto

I know that auto-levels can be used to remove a color cast, and if your image is reasonably well behaved to start with, auto-levels can work pretty good. In fact, I use it often on images such as:



My question is, is the fact that I have to use auto-levels an indication that the white balance was wrong in the first place? Or is that not the issue? Outdoor sports, usually in good sun, and I put my 20D on Auto White Balance. Might try the "sun" white balance setting next time, see what happens.

Mike Lane

FWIW, I've found that my 20D does great with white balance except in tungsten lights. That said, have a wonderful collapsable grey card that I use before I shoot any shots so I know that the white balance is where it should be.

I personally don't think that if levels fixes some issues it is necessarily due to poor white balance in the image. Levels is great for contrast issues as well.

mercphoto wrote:

I know that auto-levels can be used to remove a color cast, and if your image is reasonably well behaved to start with, auto-levels can work pretty good. In fact, I use it often on images such as:



My question is, is the fact that I have to use auto-levels an indication that the white balance was wrong in the first place? Or is that not the issue? Outdoor sports, usually in good sun, and I put my 20D on Auto White Balance. Might try the "sun" white balance setting next time, see what happens.