Adjusting Color Temperature Creatively

Color casts aren’t always bad. Another way of looking at the quality or coloration of lighting in your clips is to consider the color temperature of the dominant lighting in the scene.

Probably the most succinct example of the differences in color temperature would be the quality of light you get from an incandescent light (say, a 60-watt bulb), compared to the quality of light from an ordinary fluorescent or CFL bulb. Light from the incandescent bulb will appear more orange compared to a fluorescent light, which usually appears bluer.

When the lighting in a scene is completely neutral, the colors throughout the scene are at their most “true,” and you shouldn’t find any atmospheric tint in the image. However, many times a clip is too neutral, and the visuals appear clinical and less appealing than they should.