Ever taken an image of a lovely winter scene and been disappointed to find out the crisp, white snow came out with a bluish tint? This is the sort of situation your digital camera's white balance is supposed to forestall.
The white balance is a sensor that investigates the lighting conditions and colours of a scene and adjusts so that the white in the picture appears white.
This helps insure the other colours appear as natural as practicable. This is one advantage digital photography has over practice film. With film, you purchase with a certain lighting condition under consideration. If that changes, you want to either change your film or hope you can fix any mistakes in post-production. Most electronic cameras permit you to use either automated white balance or select between a few preset conditions such as full sun, clouded day and so on. Automated white balance will work in most conditions. There could be times, however when you need to "warm " up a picture to improve the color ,eg for portraits or sunsets. The only way to do this is set your camera's white balance to "cloudy".
This will deepen the colours and add a glowing quality to portraits. It'll take a fabulous sundown and boost it to the point of fantastic. Practice taking the same photograph with different white balance settings to get an understanding of the changes each setting conjures up. Keep notes till you have got a brilliant idea of what each setting does. In time, you may come to instantly sense which setting is the best for your special situation. White balance is a tiny setting that will make huge changes in your finished stills. Make it your mate and you will not have to fret about faded sunsets or blue snow.
