I recenty purchased my first DSLR, a Canon T1i. I've taken some beautiful pictures, but some have not turned out as well as I expected. I'm prettycomfortable with the fundamentals of photography, but white balance is one I'm not comfortable with yet. The picture below is an example of one in which the colors don't seem to be correct on. There is a bluish tint to it. I took this one with the White Balance in Auto. I've been researching white balance for a while now, and I'm getting the impression that Auto White Balance often is not good enough.


To get optimum color in my pictures, am I going to have to do a custom white balance when taking pictures, use a gray card,and/or modify them when I put them on my PC? I was able to get more accurate (or more appealing) by adjusting them in Digital PhotoPro (tone curve adjustment), but I'm arookie at that, too. Ipushed the B (blue) button and pulled it down until the blue decreased enough to look normal.


I've also tried using the preset White Balance modes with different levels of success. For example, if the scene contains sunlit areas and shady areas, I'm not sure which one to use.


If you can point me in the right direction for a strategy on getting the White Balance correct when taking the picture and/or how to start learning a the correct way to post process them, I would appreciate it very much.





Thanks,


Jeff


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