Hi,
I would agree with you that White Balance is very important to get the best from an image and necessary to get it right at an early stage in raw processing. Colours "pop" when it is right.

I seem to recall that Mike once explained that to do raw WB correctly using colour temperature, which is what sunny, cloudy etc.implies, he would need a profile for every camera. Something very difficult & expensive for him to do. That is why the WB dropper and grey area assistance was provided in Qimage. He has now improved that with the addition of a simple but effective Warm to Cool slider.

Regarding the sunny, cloudy etc. settings, they vary for each camera and raw converter. Just check what as-shot colour temperature is reported with different programs and you'll see. That is why they usually have a colour slider too.

My approach to WB is this:
- set the camera WB to the nearest for the scene being shot, I've never trusted auto, especially on my Canon.
- try to take several grey card shots during a session, see attached example of my home-made grey card in a lens cap, printed with a custom profile.
- I have one in very lens cap, not perfect but usually very close; there are fancy gadgets you can buy but more bulky and you may leave it at home.
- the new W to C slider fine tunes as required or gets me out of a hole when I've no WB shot or nothing in the image.

Did you know the new WB slider is cumulative? Make an adjustment and then close & save. Open the raw refine screen again and the slide will be zero again; all the previous setting has been recorded "in the WB button" so to speak and the full range of the slider is available again   

Terry

Hi again,
I assumed you were using Q-SE for raw as you had asked for a change to the Raw Refine controls 
So am I, and retired, but life has been busier than ever since retirement - it just means I have more choices about my schedule - except when I working on my PC and the lady of the house complains I'm spending too long in the office.   
Terry

Please do soon, something very strange has been done to that image in Qimage 
With the original raw, I'm sure we can sort it out.
Terry

Hi,
If you think that looks right for the scene, you can copy that WB setting to the other image.
However, see attached below for my interpretation of the image conversion & WB.
The QU raw settings are shown and a jpeg conversion.
The blue fringing on the background tree look like lens aberration to me, sorry!  :-\
I would have normally added a little extra USM with a filter to that image but my default raw preference settings are probably not suited to your camera.
Edit: just for fun I done that, see attached
Terry

Fred, I looked at those areas too but thought the image looked better being warmer, but of course, only Dennis can judge that as he was there.
However, some Fill seemed to lift the image to me.
Dennis, you are giving us some fun today 
Terry

Hi Dennis,

If you get a copy of fastone image viewer - http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm - it's free for home users, you can quickly see a pretty good raw converted image for your camera, and also the embedded jpeg. Instantly you can see a full size view, and scroll around to your problem background areas, view full exif's, etc. I was going to post an image of your embedded jpeg, but you can do that for yourself, nothing wrong with the image/camera as far as I can see. The embedded jpeg view is possibly what many folk would strive for 

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi Ray & Dennis,
I'm not sure about that otherwise there's no point in shooting raw  
I did extract the jpeg from Dennis's file (with QU of course), see attached. I've also attached the non-refined converted file from QU. Not a lot of difference, except perhaps in brightness. My preference would be for something a little brighter, hence me adding Fill for my first go with it.
Back to WB, out of interest I opened the file in SilkyPix. It said the as shot colour temperature was 4635K. I would think SP "Fine" 5200K or "Daylight" 5000K would closer the the actual conditions. OK. I know different converter will give you different deg K values, but just for comparison purposes. It also indicates the problem with auto WB, it is never quite right, a good reason for using raw.
It looks like my initial conversion made the image too warm but it definitely needed some warming up IMHO.
Thanks again Dennis for sharing your image and providing us with an interesting post, I'm pleased to hear you solved the problem of the of appearance initially.
Terry