An electron in an atom is excited by a photon and moves to a higher energy state. The electron then relaxes and transitions to a lower energy state emitting a photon of longer wavelength than that of the initial photon, producing the glow-in-the-dark effect. I understand this to be called fluorescence.
What then, is the process of absorption and emission of light by everyday objects? Is the leaf on a tree absorbing white light from the sun and fluorescing ~500nm green light with absorption of, say, ~600nm light from the white light? If this is the case, is the rest of the white light lost to non-radiative transitions or invisible emission (to the human eye)? Or is something unrelated to fluorescence happening?