---
title: "White balance (colour cast): meaning in product photography | Herofab"
description: "The camera setting that decides which light counts as neutral. When it is wrong, the whole photo takes on a yellow, blue or green cast."
url: https://herofab.app/glossary/white-balance
language: en
updated: 2026-10-06
---

# White balance

The camera setting that decides which light counts as neutral. When it is wrong, the whole photo takes on a yellow, blue or green cast.

Also called **colour cast** · **colour temperature**

![The mesh-strap watch with a black dial resting on soft white linen](https://herofab.app/img/ex/watch-linen-1100.webp)

Made with Herofab · Product studio

Light has a colour of its own: a bulb is warm and yellow, open shade is cool and blue, and daylight at noon lies between them. A camera corrects for this so that a white object comes out white. When the correction misses, every colour in the picture shifts together, and a cream sweater photographed under a lamp looks yellow.

For product photos the cast matters because shoppers judge colour from the image, and a product that arrives in a shade other than the one shown disappoints. Photographing near a window in daylight, with indoor lamps switched off, avoids mixed light. A sheet of white paper in a test shot shows the cast at once: if the paper is not white, neither is anything else.

Updated 5 October 2026

[Colour variants](https://herofab.app/tools/color-variants) · [Product studio](https://herofab.app/tools/product-photography) · [sRGB colour space](https://herofab.app/glossary/srgb) · [Colour variant images](https://herofab.app/glossary/colour-variant-images) · [All terms](https://herofab.app/glossary/)