Click Start Color Test to analyse your webcam's colour balance in real time. The tool samples your live camera feed to measure red, green, and blue channel levels, detect colour casts, and check for white balance issues. Get a quick read on whether your camera is reproducing accurate colours or showing a warm, cool, or tinted bias. Use the webcam viewer for full device specifications.
Values show each channel as a percentage of its maximum (0–100). Balanced channels indicate neutral white balance.
The webcam color test analyses colour channel balance from your live camera feed in real time. It takes no photos and stores no data — all processing is local to your browser tab.
Allow camera access when prompted. The live feed appears and colour analysis begins at 500ms intervals automatically.
Three bars show the relative strength of Red, Green, and Blue. Balanced bars indicate neutral colour. One dominant bar points to a colour cast.
The assessment card shows whether your camera's colour output is Neutral, Warm, Cool, or has a Green cast — with a brief note on the cause.
The swatch shows the average colour of the entire frame at a glance. Under neutral white light, this swatch should appear close to a neutral grey or match the colours in the scene.
White balance is the process of adjusting a camera's colour output so that white objects appear truly white under different light sources. When white balance is off, the entire image takes on a colour tint — called a colour cast — that affects how accurately your face, clothing, and background are reproduced.
A warm cast gives your image an orange or yellow tint. This is caused by light sources with a low colour temperature — tungsten bulbs (2700K), candles, or warm-toned LED strips. On video calls, a warm cast makes skin tones look orange and can make white shirts appear cream or yellow. To fix it, switch to a daylight-temperature bulb (5000–6500K) or manually set the camera's white balance to "Daylight" or "Cloudy."
A cool cast gives the image a blue or cold tint. This typically occurs under overcast daylight, shade, or high-colour-temperature LEDs (above 6500K). Blue casts make skin tones look pale or ashen and can make the background appear hazy. Setting the camera's white balance to "Incandescent" or "Tungsten" will add warmth to counteract the blue, or adding a warm-tinted light source in front of you achieves the same result.
A green cast is the signature of fluorescent tube lighting, which has an irregular spectral output that spikes strongly in the green channel. Offices lit by fluorescent overhead lights commonly produce this effect. Green casts make skin tones look sickly and are difficult to correct with camera white balance controls alone. Replacing fluorescent lights with LEDs at 5000K or adding a complementary magenta gel over the light source are the most effective fixes.
When all three channels (R, G, B) are within approximately 10 points of each other, the camera is producing a balanced output. This does not guarantee perfect colour accuracy — it means the overall colour temperature is close to neutral. Cameras with strong auto white balance (AWB) algorithms will continuously adjust the channels to maintain neutral balance regardless of the light source, which is why the readings may shift slightly as you move around or change scenes.
Most webcams include an Auto White Balance (AWB) system that continuously samples the image and adjusts the colour channels to keep white areas looking white. Understanding how AWB works helps you interpret the colour test readings correctly.
Most webcam AWB systems sample the image every few frames and make small corrections. This means the RGB channel readings in this tool may shift slightly over time even in stable lighting — that is the camera's AWB at work, not measurement error. If the readings are fluctuating large amounts (10+ points per second), the AWB is struggling with the current lighting — likely mixed or rapidly changing light sources.
Some cameras allow you to lock the white balance at a fixed setting via the camera's companion software or operating system settings. A locked white balance prevents the camera from continuously shifting the colour tones as your background changes — useful for content creators who want consistent colour between scenes. Run the color test after locking white balance to confirm the fixed setting is producing neutral output before recording.