The eighth essential creative option is the tint control.
The tint control in your camera allows you to manage the amount of green or magenta present in your image. To adjust it, you move the camera’s tint control setting (usually found with the camera’s white balance fine-tune control), toward the color you wish to add, away from the one you want to lose.
Most people will adjust the tint in their image to either make grand changes to the colors present or to fix slight color casts stemming from mixed indoor light sources, bounced light from green grass or other colored reflected surfaces.
The Tint Control
The Tint Control
There is nothing really difficult about setting or choosing which tint option you need. Just look at your image, imagine what it would look like with more green or magenta, then dial in the proper setting. Most DSLR cameras will give you at least six variations to choose from. Keep in mind however, that this adjustment is based on the Kelvin temperature (white balance) currently employed. Meaning that if you change your Kelvin temperature, the tint in your image would appear different as well.
Adjusting the Tint Setting
The Fine Tune Control – White Balance Shift
The tint control is connected to your white balance shift control, remember that colorful grid?
To get to the tint control, you’ll need to find and then maneuver your white balance fine-tune feature. Often this feature is connected to the white balance setting itself when approached through your camera’s menu system (look for WB Shift in Canon) and is usually represented with a colorful grid.
Outside this grid you’ll see four letters: B,G,A,M. The vertical bar (G,M) represents your tint control. With your camera’s control dial move the color marker (a small dot in the center) up to add Green to your image. Moving the dot down adds Magenta to the image. Simply push the dot towards the color you want to add, this changes the tint of your image.
Remember, the horizontal row with the letters B (Blue) and A (Amber) represent your in-camera white balance fine-tune options.
In Review
The tint control adds green or magenta to the image. Most people will adjust the tint in their image to either make grand changes to the colors present or to fix slight color casts stemming from mixed indoor light sources, bounced light from green grass or other colored reflected surfaces.
Key elements:
- Your in-camera tint option gives you control over the amount of green and magenta contained in your image.
- By moving the dial up on the grid, you are adding green to your image.
- By moving the dial down on the grid, you are adding magenta to your image.
Next: Essential Creative Option #9 – Hue/Color Tone
This is post #11 of 16 of In Camera Magic: The 12 Essential Creative Options, a free online photography course for creating spectacular images right in the camera.