Well, you\'re right that \"color balancing\" in ACR and others, does cause information loss. It is a linear operation. If it wasn\'t then the entire hue wheel would rotate. Anyone can test this by sliding the \"Temperature\" slider all the way over to one end - tint too and sliding it all the way in combination should blow away a LARGE portion of pixels in most images. A true \"Hue\" adjustment on the other hand is 100% lossless and you can change it as often as you want as much as you want and always be able to rotate it back into place for 100% recovery. My argument is based on the assumption that there\'s likely less than a few degrees Kelvin (less than 150 for sure!) difference between an \"official\" piece of plastic and one my eyes tell me is \"white\". This is not even considering all the chromatic pollution introduced by bounced light and alternate light sources adding into the mix.
Light source color temperature, size, and intensity or \"good light\" as you call it is also is very important. We can do the \"extreme example\" thing in order to test this too. Shooting under a 100% red light will kill 100% of your greens and blues resulting in a comparative information loss. Likewise a light source that produces 50% more red will kill a large percentage of greens and blues. etc. etc. And of course we\'re all aware of how our sensors or film emulsion behaves under low intensity light - or sources that produce intense specular reflections and/or dispersion with some materials.
All of these properties and mechanisms additively factor into the conditions which can indeed affect the quality of a photograph (IQ). How much depends of course on their relative amounts combined with the limits of human perception and the limits of the lenses and sensors being used. If we single out only color temperature difference of the plastics used between you and I my guesstimate is that the differences are not perceivable. Certainly using two light sources would make a VERY big difference as would the lens and sensor being used. For example my lens is just not capable of these kinds of magnification powers without additional attachments:
