Getting a well-exposed, color-correct photo will bring the most out of any subject.

When your photo is well exposed, you will see all the gradations on a grayscale. When you have your digital camera set to the proper white balance under flash you get the most dynamic range possible.

The color space of flash is dead center in the color wheel. Other lights like Tungsten, Fluorescent, Mercury Vapor, LED, and others are skewed off the center of the color wheel. While you can color correct these images by adding or subtracting colors to try and slide them back to the center, your color is never as good as under pure flash.

I shot this photo outside on the shaded side of my house. I color-corrected using “Custom White Balance.”

Using the ExpoDisc, I put this over the front of the lens and did an incident light reading and custom white balance.

I do this when shooting in the studio because softboxes often have a slight color cast that I can correct.

I cannot stress enough that the one thing that separates the very top photographers from the rest technically usually is white balance.

Colors pop when your exposure and color balance are on target.