Canon Power shot 480 taken some photo's of blue 'forget me not' plants and they turn out white why? Taken in daylight 8.15pm UK (as this is world forum) 1/8 shutter f5.8 iso400 AWB (assume that is auto white balance).

bob, April 2014

Canon's AWB often gives poor results on their compacts. (it is much better on their DSLRs, but that is not much help in this case). If the forget-me-nots are still in bloom it would be worth repeating the shots with the white balance set to daylight (or cloudy or shade, whichever applies). If not, then there's always next year.

Another possible cause of the problem might be overexposure of the blooms, which will not only lose detail but may also lose colour definition. Check the histograms for the shots in question. If they show clipping at the right-hand end then that's your answer, and you need to use some negative exposure compensation.

Tony Brookes, July 2014

Yes, AWB is auto white balance.
As you where taking those photos of blue flowers outside, and the flowers seems to be taking a lot of place in the image, the overwhelming blue was assumed to realy be white.

You may try some processing to restore the blue the flowers should have.
Some tools:
Photoshop (need to pay)
The Gimp (FREE ! a direct concurent to Photoshop/Paintshop)
You may try IrfanView (Free, lightweight and easy to use but don't have all the refinments of the aboves)

You may try to take some new photos with the AWB disabled, or with some real white showing somewhere.

Electro, April 2014