White balance is a term that is usually associated with photography, and is a process that is employed to remove unrealistic colour casts to ensure the objects that appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Elements like colour temperature play a very crucial role in maintaining a proper white balance.

Our eyes are very sensitive and are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, but by contrast digital cameras are often found lacking on this front and consequently you more often than not face difficulty while adjusting the auto white balance (AWB). Some cameras, like the Kodak EasyShare C913, have preset white balance programmes, such as auto or daylight, to make configuring the white balance even easier. It is important that the WB is properly set or else you will have to bear with irregularities like unsightly blue, orange, or even green colour casts, which are not only unrealistic but ends up damaging the very essence of the image.

Colour temperature is actually a measurement of the spectrum of light that is radiated from a “blackbody” with that surface temperature. A black body, on the other hand, is an object that absorbs all light radiations incident on it. Moreover, black bodies at different temperatures also have varying colour temperatures of “white light.” However it is pertinent to bear in mind that white balance doesn’t signify an even distribution of colours across the visible spectrum.

Another question that may be disturbing you is the use of the term colour temperature to describe light, as they are not associated with black bodies. The reason behind it is it light sources such as daylight and tungsten bulbs closely mimic the distribution of light created by blackbodies. However, others such as fluorescent and most commercial lighting depart from blackbodies significantly.