How to Adjust White Balance in Lightroom Classic

To change white balance in Lightroom Classic, open the photo in the Develop module and look at the WB section at the top of the Basic panel. You have three tools there: the White Balance Selector (the eyedropper, shortcut W), which you click on something in the photo that should be neutral gray or white; the WB preset menu (As Shot, Auto, Daylight and so on); and the Temp and Tint sliders for fine control. For most photos the fastest route to accurate color is one click with the eyedropper on a neutral spot, then a small nudge of Temp to taste.

This page walks through each tool, how to pick the right spot to click, how to handle scenes with no neutral object or with two kinds of light, and how to apply one correction to a whole shoot. If you want the theory behind it first, white balance explains why different light sources tint a photo.

Where the White Balance Controls Are

• Develop module, Basic panel, WB row. The eyedropper sits at the left of the row, the preset menu beside it, and the Temp and Tint sliders just below.
• Library module, Quick Develop panel. A White Balance menu with the same presets, handy for changing many selected photos at once without leaving the grid.
• Masks. Every mask in the Develop module has its own Temp and Tint sliders, so you can change white balance in one part of the frame only.

Raw files get the full set of presets (As Shot, Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash) and a Temp slider in kelvin. JPEG, TIFF and HEIC files only offer As Shot, Auto and Custom, and their Temp and Tint sliders run on a plain scale of minus 100 to plus 100 instead of kelvin, because the camera has already applied its white balance to the pixels. You can still correct those files, but large shifts look less natural than on a raw file. The raw vs JPEG guide explains why raw has so much more room.

How to Use the White Balance Selector

1. In the Develop module, press W or click the eyedropper in the Basic panel. The cursor turns into the selector.
2. Look at the toolbar under the photo (press T if it is hidden). Turn on Show Loupe to see a magnified grid of pixels under the cursor with their R, G and B readouts, and use Scale to change how many pixels the grid shows.
3. Move the cursor over areas that should be neutral. The Navigator panel at the top left previews what the photo would look like if you clicked there, so you can try several spots before committing.
4. Click a spot where the R, G and B readouts are close to each other but not near 100%. Lightroom sets Temp and Tint so that spot becomes neutral, which removes the color cast from the whole image.
5. If Auto Dismiss is ticked in the toolbar, the tool puts itself away after one click. Untick it if you want to keep sampling, then press Esc or click Done when finished.

The click is a starting point, not a verdict. If the result looks technically neutral but cold or flat, drag Temp a little to the right for warmth. A sunset or a candlelit room is supposed to look warm, and a perfectly neutral version can look wrong.

Choosing the Right Spot to Click

The selector only works as well as the pixels you give it. Good targets:

• A gray card or the gray patches on a color checker target. They are made to be neutral, so they give the most reliable result.
• Light gray, not pure white. A white shirt or wall in shadow, gray concrete, a gray road surface, or a cloud that is not blown out. Mid to light tones carry color information in all three channels.
• The whites of the eyes or white teeth at a pinch, though both are often slightly warm, so expect to cool the result a touch.

Avoid these:

• Clipped highlights. Pure white pixels (readouts at or near 100%) have no color data left, so the tool cannot calculate a correction.
• Deep shadows. They are noisy and often pick up color from nearby surfaces.
• Surfaces that are only nearly neutral. Off-white paint, cream fabric, a pale blue shirt or a warm wooden table tells Lightroom to cancel that color, which pushes the whole photo the opposite way.
• Areas lit by a different light from your subject, such as a white wall lit by a window when your subject is lit by a lamp.

Using the Temp and Tint Sliders

Temp moves the image between blue and yellow. Tint moves it between green and magenta. Together they can correct any ordinary color cast.

On raw files the Temp number is the color temperature of the light Lightroom is correcting for, in kelvin. A higher number tells Lightroom the light was bluer, so it warms the photo to compensate; a lower number cools it. That is why the slider bar runs from blue on the left to yellow on the right. The presets set these values for you, roughly:

Fluorescent tubes and some LED lights add a green cast, so photos taken under them often need Tint moved toward magenta, to about plus 5 to plus 20. Small adjustments go a long way: try moves of 100 to 300K on Temp and 5 to 10 on Tint before anything bigger. Double-click a slider’s name to reset it to its starting value.

Auto in the preset menu lets Lightroom analyze the photo and set Temp and Tint itself (the shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+U, or Cmd+Shift+U). It is a good first guess for outdoor scenes and a poor one for scenes dominated by one color, such as a forest or a beach.

How to Get Accurate White Balance Every Time

1. Shoot raw. You can then set any white balance later with no loss in quality.
2. Photograph a reference. At the start of each lighting setup, take one frame of a gray card in the subject’s position, in the same light.
3. Click the reference with the selector. Open that frame, press W and click the card.
4. Copy the result to the rest. Select the corrected frame first, then the others from the same setup, click Sync at the bottom of the right panel and tick only White Balance. Or copy settings with Ctrl+Shift+C (Cmd+Shift+C) and paste them with Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V).
5. Adjust for mood last. Once the set is accurate and consistent, warm or cool the whole group together if the story calls for it.

Photos from the same shoot still look different side by side? Matching exposures across multiple photos in Lightroom covers evening out a set.

A calibrated monitor matters here too. If your screen shows a cast, you will correct for the screen instead of the photo. Monitor calibration explains how to set it up.

When There Is Nothing Neutral in the Frame

Many photos have no gray card and no obvious neutral surface. Try these in order:

• Pick the most neutral thing you can find with Show Loupe on and judge by the readouts, not by eye. A shadowed patch of pavement or a gray rock often works.
• Use a preset that matches the light, then adjust Temp until skin or a familiar object looks right.
• Use a known color as the reference. Skin, green foliage and blue sky are colors everyone knows. If skin looks green or orange, the white balance is off.
• Match another photo from the same scene that does contain something neutral, and sync its white balance across.

Mixed Lighting

A room lit by both warm lamps and cool daylight from a window has no single correct white balance. The selector corrects for one light and leaves the other looking off. Correct for the light on your subject first. Then add a mask over the area lit by the other source, such as a brush or linear gradient over the window side, and use that mask’s Temp and Tint to bring it closer to neutral. Lightroom masking covers how to build those masks. A little leftover warmth or coolness often looks natural, so you do not need to make every area perfectly neutral.

Is the warm glow coming from household bulbs? Tungsten light explains why it photographs orange and how to work with it.

Common Mistakes

• Clicking a colored surface. Off-white or cream objects throw the whole image the other way. Check the readouts first.
• Clicking blown highlights. Pure white pixels carry no color information, so the result is unreliable.
• Correcting everything to neutral. Golden hour, candlelight and blue hour are meant to look warm or cool. Neutral is accurate, not always right.
• Correcting each photo of a series separately. Small differences between frames show up when the photos sit side by side. Correct one and sync the rest.
• Using the Saturation or HSL sliders to fix a cast. They change how strong colors are, not the color of the light. Fix white balance first, then adjust color.
• Editing on an uncalibrated screen. The photo may look right to you and wrong everywhere else.

Try This

Take one indoor photo lit by a lamp, ideally with something white or gray in it. Make three virtual copies (Ctrl+’ or Cmd+’). On the first, choose Auto. On the second, use the White Balance Selector on the neutral object. On the third, set Temp by eye until skin or wood looks the way you remember it. Compare all three in Survey view (press N). Note the Temp and Tint each method chose and which version you prefer. Ten minutes of this teaches you how far apart a measured and a pleasing white balance can be.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I adjust white balance in Lightroom?

In the Develop module, use the WB section of the Basic panel: click a neutral spot with the White Balance Selector, choose a preset, or drag the Temp and Tint sliders. In the Library module, the Quick Develop panel has a White Balance menu for quick changes to many photos at once.

What is the shortcut for the white balance tool in Lightroom?

Press W in the Develop module to pick up the White Balance Selector. Press Esc to put it down without clicking.

Why is the white balance eyedropper not working?

Usually because you clicked an area that is clipped to pure white, which has no color data, or one that is not actually neutral. Look at the R, G and B readouts in the loupe and pick a lighter gray spot where all three are similar.

Why are my Temp and Tint sliders not in kelvin?

Because the photo is a JPEG, TIFF or HEIC rather than a raw file. The camera has already applied white balance to those files, so Lightroom shows a relative scale from minus 100 to plus 100 instead.

How do I apply the same white balance to several photos?

Correct one photo, select it and then the others, click Sync and tick only White Balance. You can also turn on Auto Sync to change all selected photos as you edit.

New to the Develop module? Lightroom for beginners walks through the panels in the order you use them.

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