Color Temperature Reference

Knowledge Base

How to Use the Color Temperature Reference

The Color Temperature Reference tool shows how different light sources, from candlelight to daylight to tungsten studio lights, appear on the Kelvin scale. Use this when white-balancing your camera or adjusting color temperature in post-production.

Understanding Kelvin Temperature

Kelvin (K) measures light color. Lower values are warmer (orange/red), higher values are cooler (blue). Human eyes auto-correct for different light temperatures, but cameras need explicit white balance settings or manual correction in post.

Common Light Sources

• Tungsten (3200K): Studio lights, older light bulbs. Very warm, orange-yellow cast.
• Daylight (5500K): Midday sun, overcast skies. Neutral reference point for most work.
• Shade (7500K+): Open shade or north light. Appears cool/blue to human eyes.
• Mixed Lighting: Combining tungsten and daylight creates color temperature challenges (some sources at 3200K, others at 5500K).

White Balancing Your Camera

Set your camera's white balance to match your primary light source. Or shoot in Log/RAW and correct in post-production using a color card or the reference tool.

FAQ

Q: Should I shoot in Kelvin or white balance presets?
A: Presets (Daylight, Tungsten, Shade) are usually accurate enough. Manual Kelvin mode gives fine control but requires testing.

Q: How do I handle mixed tungsten and daylight?
A: Prefer one source and use gels or lights to match. If mixing, aim for 4500K compromise and fix in post-production.

Common light sources by colour temperature

Every source the tool plots, listed with its temperature range, so you can look up a value without working the slider.

Working with mixed light

Colour temperature describes the colour of a light source in kelvin, where lower numbers are warmer and higher numbers are cooler. The scale runs opposite to how people describe colour, so candlelight at around 1900 kelvin is called warm despite its low number, and overcast daylight at around 6500 is called cool despite its high one.

White balance tells the camera which source to treat as neutral. Setting it to match your dominant light makes that light render as white and everything else shift relative to it. There is no universally correct setting, only the one making the source you care about look right.

Mixed lighting is the practical problem. A room lit by a window and a tungsten lamp contains two temperatures at once, and no single white balance neutralises both, so one will render blue or orange. The fix happens on set rather than in the grade: turn one source off, gel it to match the other, or overwhelm it with something stronger.

Gels convert one source to match another. Colour temperature orange warms a daylight-balanced source toward tungsten, and colour temperature blue does the reverse. Correcting at the light is more reliable than correcting in the camera, because it makes every subsequent decision simpler rather than adding a compensation everything else has to work around.

Consistency matters more than accuracy. Shots from one scene that vary in temperature are noticeable when cut together, while a scene consistently a little warm reads as a deliberate choice. Locking white balance manually rather than leaving it automatic is what prevents the camera changing its mind between takes.

Vocabulary

Kelvin. The unit of colour temperature. Lower values are warmer and more orange, higher values are cooler and more blue, which runs opposite to how the words warm and cool suggest the numbers should behave.

White balance. The camera setting deciding which light source renders as neutral white. Everything else in frame shifts relative to that choice, so it determines whether a source looks correct or coloured.

Colour gel. A translucent sheet placed over a light to change its colour temperature or tint. Used to make sources match each other, which solves mixed lighting at the cause rather than in the grade.

Mixed lighting. A scene lit by sources of different colour temperatures at once. No single white balance neutralises all of them, so one source will always render coloured unless the lighting itself is changed.