Great challenge Anna. I have often used this technique to adjust the color in a photo. Sometimes, you just can't get the color quite right, ..... until you change the white balance. Leaving the camera set to AWB is a good idea, up to a point. Just as the camera sometimes thinks it knows better than you do what you want as far as focus and exposure are concerned, so it also does with White Balance. There have been times when I have taken a shot in daylight with no clouds and the camera has assigned a WB anywhere from approaching tungsten to getting shady. AWB is a good place to start. It gives you an approximation of the actual conditions. Without a meter that reads color temperature, you will never be able to get it exact. thats why I start with what the camera gives me and then process until it looks good to the eye. You'll be surprised how well your eye remembers the correct WB. If it looks right then it probably is right. Also, altering the color with WB can enhance the mood. The first series was of my "famous" eggplant parmagiana under natural light, which was a combination of the kitchen fluorescents and the late afternoon daylight from the south. The camera shot it at 3400K and it still looked a bit yellow so I adjusted the WB to 3144K and increased the tint from +8 to +18. By the way, those ARE orange tomatoes.

Don't forget, never believe everything the camera tells you. It is a dumb machine acting under a very broad set of pre-programmed rules. True creativity comes from knowing when and how to break those rules. Remember also, breaking rules is always more fun than not.

Great challenge Annacady! Not to worry regarding what level we are at. :-) It is all a learning curve. My sister used to drill me with "color temperature" when I was learning to paint with watercolor. It took me forever to figure out what was warm and what was cool. But I finally got it! We laugh about it now! I often forget to change my WB when I start a photo shoot! After a few pics I look at them, I laugh at myself (or sometimes kick myself) and go in and do some test shots to see which setting looks more natural. If I get home and I have a picture that I know is wrong I go into my Elements 11 and click on "remove color cast", then find something white in the picture and click on it...it will "most times" bring out the correct color. Sometimes you have to try a few different areas to get it right. Another thing I do if most of the picture looks right, but perhaps one color just doesn't look right, I go into " adjust hue and saturation" then click on "master" and pick out the color that is wrong.. i.e. yellows, greens, blues...etc. and then use the slider..it will change only the color you have chosen.
I hope this helps someone out there! LOL!
There are many, many ways of correcting and those that us RAW can "probably" fix them easier/better through the RAW editing program.
I have to click on your link and check it out...and I will be!

In the meantime, here are 3 pics I took one morning and I will give the settings. I find it interesting that I didn't change my w/b at all...but other settings were changed. These were all taken with my 100mm canon macro lens
Thanks again for hosting such a great challenge! Have a great day everyone!

Anna, thank you for hosting. A very interesting topic and will be a challenge. Article was a good one. I tend to leave my camera on Auto WB and then make adjustments afterwards for the very reason the article mentions (I forget to return it to AWB) and have lost a few one and only shots. Took these yesterday in AWB under fluorescent lights (I think) in a historical fish market on Portland's wharf. I hope to experiment using foliage today.

chose to show the pic with lobster meat in it as folks are always asking me the price of lobster. This meat has already been picked . Forgot to look at the price of live ones :(

This challenge is just to get you to really look at the trees around you and even get up close and personal. When you stop and look you will see all sorts of things including the shape, the bark patterns, how the branches come away at different angles depending on the tree. Sometimes you can see the roots and they can make great abstracts! There are live trees, dead trees, green trees, colourful trees, trees blowing in the wind, and some blown over by the wind! So get out there and see what you can capture or let us see what you already have! And don't forget...sometimes we are lucky to see critters in those trees!