SHOOT COOL COLOURS

Higher Kelvin colour values ensure that your images have a full tonal range

Humans tend to respond H positively to warmer reds, yellows and oranges, probably because we see them as indicators of a comfortable environmental temperature. There's also the effect of skin tones on the perception of health and vitality - blue skin rarely suggests either of these. However, this can lead to photographers developing a mild fear of cooler tones in images, or generally forgetting to give them room to breathe. At the least, we should allow natural blues and cyans to balance the hues at the opposite side of the colour wheel.

When we strip out any colour range. an image can feel as if it's missing something. For anyone viewing the image, it won't be necessarily apparent what this is, but even predominantly warm scenes, such as sunrises and sunsets, can feel imbalanced without neutral or cool-toned shadows. Working these colours into our images in an organic way takes practice, however, and we need to do so with a clear intent - do we want a strong global colour cast for creative effect, or is it better to aim for a subtle bias?