Why Do My Photos Have a Weird Colour Cast?

Likely causes

• White balance set for the wrong light source. a setting suited to daylight will render an indoor tungsten-lit scene far too warm, and vice versa.
• Mixed lighting in the same scene. a scene lit by both window light and an indoor bulb can confuse automatic white balance, since the two sources have different colour temperatures.
• Not checking colour accuracy against a known reference. a cast can look acceptable at a glance while still being genuinely inaccurate compared to the scene's real colours.

The fix

1. Check the estimated white balance against a known reference in the scene, like a white or neutral-grey object.
2. Identify whether the light is mixed or single-source, and correct for the dominant light affecting your subject.
3. Recheck white balance whenever moving between different lighting conditions rather than assuming one setting holds.