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White Balance

From “Lighting Fundamentals¨ in Light for Visual Artists

Most light sources in everyday situations have a colour cast, although the brain is very good at filtering this out. As long as there is a vague mixture of the three primaries in the light, the brain interprets it as white.

That is to say, if under a given color cast there exists some reflection of light that includes an indeterminate mixture of the three primary colors, it is perceived as white. This is true so far as one is viewing the reflected light from under the color cast, rather than from a perspective removed from this color cast.

This is because, when it comes to the varying frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, we (Yot 2020, 15):

From “Lighting Fundamentals¨ in Light for Visual Artists

[…] perceive them in a relative manner rather than an absolute one.

primary_colors electromagnetic_spectrum electro-magnetic_spectrum electromagnetic_radiation electro-magnetic_radiation optics perception psychology color_theory reflected_light reflection bounced_light social_science

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bibliography

• “Lighting Fundamentals.” In Light for Visual Artists: Understanding and Using Light in Art & Design, 2nd ed., 9–116. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing, 2020.