Magic Bullet Colorista V

White Balance

White Balance is a color picker that removes a highlight color cast by clicking on a close-to-white area in the Preview Window. Upon clicking, the parameter will set a color that balances out the red, green, and blue components to make that white area neutral. When choosing to use this control, it should be the first one set, even before adjusting the 3-Way settings. White Balance adjustment is considered a typical first step when fixing any footage coloring issues.

Use the eyedropper tool to define the image’s white point. White Balance then adjusts the shadows and highlights and also corrects the black point based on the white point provided.

White Balance only affects the source footage's shadows and highlights. It does not adjust for midtones. The white point in the Highlight wheel and black point in the Shadow wheel move correspondingly, while the Midtone wheel does not change.

An alternate use for White Balance is to click the color chip and manually define the color. This method sets that color to tint the image. Typically, you would use this approach to compensate for the perceived color tone. As an example, if the color is too hot, choose a blue-color chip to turn the image more orange (its opposite on the color wheel).

Workflow Tip: Usually, the most accurate way to sample a white point is to click in the sclera, the white area of someone's eye. If the sclera is too shadowed (as in the example below) then sample from the whitest possible point of the image.

The original image (left) and image after Auto Balance (right). Red X marks the sample area. Notice the changes in the Auto Balance color chip, Shadow wheel, and Highlight wheel.