Digital white balance is an often neglected feature of digital cameras that aims to correct the color of white objects in your photographs. If you have ever taken a photograph and the white objects came out slightly blue or yellow you will know how important this feature can be. Our eyes and brains are very good at interpreting colors in a variety of lighting conditions but this is not so easy for digital cameras. The white balance sensor can adjust the color balance of a scene by analysing the light and making suitable adjustments.

Most digital cameras nowadays have two modes of digital white balance, automatic and manual. In most conditions automatic white balance (AWB) is adequate or you can choose between settings suitable for cloudy, full sun, fluorescent lighting, tungsten lighting etc. One advantage of using the manual setting is that you can adjust the resulting image to make the picture 'warmer'. This is especially helpful for sunsets where setting the white balance for 'cloudy', deepens the colors and gives your sunset images a lovely, glowing quality. You can also 'warm up' portrait shots in the same way.

it is a good idea to practise taking pictures with the white balance on different settings to get a feel for the various effects and see how your images are affected. You will soon have a good feel for the appropriate settings to use in different lighting situations. Although the white balance setting may seem to be a small adjustment it can make a real difference to the quality of your pictures. If you are aiming to take stunning images of sunsets you really need to become familiar with your digital white balance settings!