I was surprised at the extreme effect from using "White balance" on this snowy picture. Usually, I use this correction for photos that were taken on a cloudy day and the photos have a slightly "foggy" look to them. My understanding is that the White Balance tool makes sure there is a true white color and adjusts the others to match (?).
Here is the original photo with no effects applied. This is a photo of the ground at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island. Camera is about 5 feet (1.5m) away from the ground.
I use a program called gthumb which is available for free in any linux system.
