Blue Hue in Pictures

[Rosenberg]

I have a Rebel T3, and I take pictures in the "P" creative mode to have better control over the flash.  My pictures using the flash come out with a blue tint.  I am not a professional or in any way a sophisticated user.  From the User Manual I figured out how to change the White Balance setting - I think - (custom white balance is too confusing), but I can't seem to figure out the best mode.  The most important thing is I need my whites to look white.  Help.

[Mark35mmF2]

Hi there,

It sounds like this can be resolved by changing the camera's white balance setting. The light that comes from a flash tends to be similar to daylight in color but sometimes the lighting situations we need flash in are reading as not blue enough to the camera's automatic white balance system. You can use the instructions on page 115 of your camera's manual below to change the white balance. There is a specific "Flash" setting for white balance which I definitely recommend but if you have a couple minutes this would also be a good time to try all the different white balance settings to see if you like one better than the other. I tend to leave my white balance on "Daylight" most of the time myself as it tends to give warmer color in most typical shooting situations and it handles flash well also.

https://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/0/0300004730/02/eosrt3-eos1100d-im2-c-en.pdf

[ebiggs1]

I have two suggestions for you.  First rest the camera, Menus, tools, clear all settings and all custom settings. Now let the camera do its thing using P mode. I hope you are using a Canon brand flash designed for your camera?

Second d/l the free Canon DPP4 post editing program.  When you take photos choose Raw as the file format, not jpg.  Why?  Because no matter what the WB setting is or how it may look or changed with Raw format and DPP4 you can look at your  photo on your computer and select any WB you desire.  No matter what! You can even select infinite WB settings that are not available in the camera.

You are probably already importing your photos to your computer anyway, so adding DPP4 is not a big deal as most of it is automatic or just a few mouse clicks.  Even the WB adjustment is simple to learn. Even better it is a non-destructive adjustment so you can do it as many times as you like.