White Balance; an area to work on

I'm fairly new to digital photography. I got my Canon EOS 400D about six months ago and I have learnt loads since then. Evidently, I have loads more to learn as well.

White Balance is the issue I most need to address.

White Balance (WB) - the camera uses a 'recording' for white to work out the reproduction of colours. If the white is recorded right then the reproduction of the colours will be accurate (for a camera). But the 'recording' of white changes all the time due to 'colour temperature' and therefore white balance changes all the time.

Many of mine photos have been affected by either using Auto White Balance (ABW) when a preset or custom setting for WB would have been better or using the preset 'sunny', 'cloudy', 'tunsgens', 'fluorescent' etc., and not changing the setting when the light source changes. This has lead to many of my photos looking a bit strange or dull.

At this stage

I guess that I need to have my light setting to ABW for most occasions. At the moment, the main exception I know of is for sunrise and sunset.

Use preset WB if the light source is going to be constant and remember to turn back to AWB when I finish shooting.

Also to learn how to do custom WB, so if I'm going to a lot of photos, say indoors, then a Custom WB would be better.

Also to shoot using RAW, as this will give you the option to correct WB after shooting.