Light of a cool colour temperature, such as that often found at north-facing windows, can often produce an noticeable blue cast in images. When white backgrounds are used this cast may become unacceptable. Digital cameras allow us to change colour balance using custom or manual white balance settings.

Direct the camera towards a plain sheet of white card or paper under the lighting to be used for still-life work, and set an appropriate colour balance. Note also that it still remains important to avoid underexposing white backgrounds because meters are designed to expose images for an average 18 percent grey. A camera's normal exposure setting may result in just that - pale grey! Working is RAW format allows the most scope for correction at a later stage.