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Film cameras use different types of film and filters to balance light. For shooting outside or with flash, you use daylight film.  For shooting in tungsten indoor light you use tungsten film.  When shooting in bluish shade you might use an 81A yellow filter. A bluish filter balances a yellow tint.

Digital cameras accomplish the same thing by adjusting white balance. Setting white balance at tungsten shifts a yellow light hue in the bluish direction. Tungsten household light is yellowish and when you set white balance to tungsten the camera compensates by shifting the yellowish hue in the blue direction. Or to counter a bluish shade you might set the white balance to shade to shift the color in a yellowish direction. In the world of digital photography color tints are described in terms of Kelvin (K) temperatures. 

Here are a few examples of Kelvin temperatures:

10,000 K: heavily overcast sky 8000 K: hazy sky 7000 K: lightly overcast sky 6000-6500 K: bright midday sun A designation of D50 stands for "Daylight 5000K" and D65 stands for “Daylight 6,500K” Both are common standards for monitor calibration.    3000 K: studio lamps, photofloods 2800 K: tungsten lamp (ordinary household bulb), sunrise and sunset 1200 K: a candle