White balance an image
Last updated
Last updated
Sometimes, after shooting a particular scene, you may want to make the entire image warmer (more yellow) or cooler (bluer). Or you might notice that an image looks too warm, too cool, or has a green or magenta tint that you’d like to remove. The White Balance adjustment lets you do just that — you can adjust the white balance manually, or automatically using the machine learning-powered ML adjustment. ML uses computer vision to recognize objects in the image (for example, people, trees, or a sky), and white balances it to remove any unnatural color tints.
You can white balance a single layer or, using a color adjustments layer, multiple layers in a composition.
Choose Format > Color Adjustments > White Balance from the Format menu at the top of your screen.
In the Tools sidebar, click the Color Adjustments tool and turn on White Balance.
Press A on your keyboard and turn on the White Balance adjustment.
Choose Insert > Color Adjustments from the Insert menu at the top of your screen and turn on the White Balance adjustment in the Tool Options pane.
Click at the top of the Layers sidebar, choose Color Adjustments, and turn on the White Balance adjustment.
Press Shift ⇧ + Command ⌘ + A on your keyboard, and turn on the White Balance adjustment.
📘 Note: If the adjustment isn't visible, you can turn it on from the Customize menu at the bottom of the Color Adjustments pane.
Drag the Temperature slider to the left to make the image cooler, or to the right to make it warmer. Press and hold the Option ⌥ key before dragging if you’d like to extend the range of the Temperature slider beyond 100%. You can also enter a percentage value from –200% to 200%.
Drag the Tint slider to the left to add a green tint (or neutralize a magenta tint) or drag the slider to the right to add a magenta tint (or neutralize a green tint). Press and hold the Option ⌥ key before dragging if you’d like to extend the range of the Tint slider beyond 100%. You can also enter a percentage value from –200% to 200%.
Click ML in the Tool Options pane next to the White Balance adjustment
Click the White Balance eyedropper and then click an area in your image that should be a neutral grey.
After doing this, you can manually fine-tune the automatic adjustments applied to your image by dragging the Temperature and Tint sliders.
Show Original: Click the Show Original button or press Control ⌃ + M on your keyboard to see what the image looks like without any color adjustments.
Show Split Comparison: Option ⌥ – click the Show Original button, press Control ⌃ + C on your keyboard, or force-click the canvas.
To reset all Color Adjustments, click Reset at the bottom of the Color Adjustments pane.
