All photographers mess up, some times it is the focus, sometimes it is not having enough shutter speed for active subjects and sometimes a dial gets bumped and when it is not noticed it can affect all the images taken after it has been changed.

Laughing Gull - Manual White balance mistakeLaughing Gull – Manual White balance mistake

I bumped my White Balance from Auto before I took this image and the effect on this image is clear.  The plumage shown here is too brown for a mature Laughing Gull, only juvenile Laughing Gulls from hatching through the end of their first winter show brown, mature Laughing Gulls in breeding and nonbreeding plumage have gray backs, black on the wing tips and soft white necks, chests and rumps.

manual-wb-laughing-gull

Because I shoot in RAW and bring my RAW files into Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) I’m able to see the Temperature of my images and in this case I can see that the temperature of my white balance was 7100, way too high and too yellow for the conditions I was shooting in.

Laughing Gull - White balance correction

Also because I shoot in RAW I am easily able to correct my White Balance within ACR, this is the same image but I applied corrections so that the gulls gray plumage looks gray, the whites look soft white plus the sand and water look the right color.

custom-wb-laughing-gull

I made the adjustment by moving the slider towards the blues, in this case 5500 fixed my White Balance issue in the frame. Now the bird has the right colors for a Laughing Gull.

Mia

*I am away from home, please feel free to share this post with your family & friends.