3 Reasons to Adjust the White Balance Before You Continue Edits

You don’t always have to fix your white balance before you take the shot. Sometimes, especially if you’re working outside or with a lot of action, you can’t fix the white balance before the shot. But that doesn’t mean you have to start over. Get your film and pictures professionally rebalanced after the fact. Even if you plan on adding a filter, here are three reasons to request white balance first:

Pick up on fine patterns with white balance.

Tiny details are the difference between a crisp, lifelike shot and something fuzzy or generic. If you put a lot of work into the fabrics, the scenery, and the overall color balance of the scene, don’t let it go to waste. Get the white balance readjusted so shades show up the way you want.

Don’t contaminate your filter choices.

Color and motion filters make all the difference in your final products. Movie use them as basic mood setting and shorthand for themes: action movies have a blue and orange contrast, while dystopias have sepia tones. Every shot is coded to let viewers know what they’re supposed to feel, and the color choices can get pretty specific. Don’t let yellow incandescent lights or warmly colored glows interfere. Instead, have professional editors rebalance the white light first.

Unify the look.

Lighting matters. Even if you’re viewers can’t pick out the lighting in your stills and footage, they know when something is wrong. Using different lights in different locations, which happens if you don’t control 100% of the setting, can make scenes feel disjointed and incohesive. Editors can rebalance the lighting so it’s uniformly white and all of the shots have the same underlying style.

Contact us at Advanced Media Integration for white balance, professional video editing, and disc replication all in one place.