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- Before You Color Correct Anything, Do This First!
- Photo Quick Fix
- Getting a Visual Readout (Histogram) of Your Corrections
- Color Correcting Digital Camera Images
- Daves Amazing Trick for Finding a Neutral Gray
- Studio Photo Correction Made Simple
- Drag-and-Drop Instant Color Correction
- Adjusting Flesh Tones
- Warming Up (or Cooling Down) a Photo
- Color Correcting One Problem Area Fast!
- Getting a Better Conversion from Color to Black and White
- Correcting Color and Contrast Using Color Curves
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Color Correcting Digital Camera Images
Ever wonder why the term âcolor correctionâ gets thrown around so much? Thatâs because every digital camera (and even most scanners used for capturing traditional photos) puts its little signature (i.e., color cast) on your photos. Most times itâs a red cast, but it can also be blue or green. Donât get me wrongâthey are getting better, but the color cast is still there. Hereâs how to help combat those color problems in Elements:
- Step One: Open the digital camera photo you want to color correct. (The photo shown here doesnât look too bad, but as we go through the correction process, youâll see that, like most photos, it really needed a correction.)
- Step Two: Go under the Enhance menu, under Adjust Lighting, and choose Levels (or press Ctrl-L). The dialog may look intimidating at first, but the technique youâre going to learn here requires no previous knowledge of Levels, and itâs so easy, youâll be correcting photos using Levels immediately.
- Step Three: First, we need to set some preferences in the Levels dialog so weâll get the results weâre after when we start correcting. Weâll start by setting a target color for our shadow areas. To set this preference, in the Levels dialog, double-click on the black Eyedropper tool (itâs on the right-hand side of the dialog, the first Eyedropper from the left). A Color Picker will appear asking you to âSelect target shadow color.â This is where weâll enter values that, when applied, will help remove any color casts your camera introduced in the shadow areas of your photo.
- Step Four: Weâre going to enter values in the R, G, and B (red, green, and blue) fields of this dialog.
For R, enter 10
For G, enter 10
For B, enter 10
- Step Five: Now weâll set a preference to make our highlight areas neutral. Double-click on the highlight Eyedropper (the third
of the three Eyedroppers in the Levels dialog). The Color Picker will appear asking you to âSelect target highlight color.â
Click in the R field, and then enter these values:
For R, enter 240
For G, enter 240
For B, enter 240
Then click OK to set those values as your highlight target.
- Step Six: Finally, set your midtone preference. You know the drillâdouble-click on the midtones Eyedropper (the middle of the three
Eyedroppers) so you can âSelect target midtone color.â Enter these values in the R, G, and B fields (if theyâre not already
there by default):
For R, enter 128
For G, enter 128
For B, enter 128
Then click OK to set those values as your midtone target.
- Step Seven: Okay, youâve entered your preferences (target colors), so go ahead and click OK in the Levels dialog (without making any changes to your image). Youâll get an alert dialog asking you if you want to âSave the new target colors as defaults?â Click Yes, and from that point on, you wonât have to enter these values each time you correct a photo, because theyâll already be entered for youâtheyâre now the default settings.
- Step Eight: Youâre going to use these Eyedropper tools that reside in the Levels dialog to do most of your correction work. Your job is to determine where the shadow, midtone, and highlight areas are, and click the right Eyedropper in the right place (youâll learn how to do that in just a moment). So remember your jobâfind the shadow, midtone, and highlight areas and click the right Eyedropper in the right spot. Sounds easy, right? It is. You start by opening Levels and setting the shadows first, so youâll need to find an area in your photo thatâs supposed to be black. If you canât find something thatâs supposed to be the color black, then it gets a bit trickierâin the absence of something black, you have to determine which area in the image is the darkest. If youâre not sure where the darkest part of the photo is, you can use the following trick to have Elements tell you exactly where it is.
- Step Nine: Go to the top of the Layers palette and click on the half-black/half-white circle icon to bring up the Create Adjustment Layer pop-up menu. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Threshold, which brings up a dialog with a histogram and a slider under it.
- Step 10: When the Threshold dialog appears, drag the Threshold Level slider under the histogram all the way to the left. Your photo will turn completely white. Slowly drag the slider back to the right, and as you do, youâll start to see some of your photo reappear. The first area that appears is the darkest part of your image. Thatâs itâthatâs Elements telling you exactly where the darkest part of the image is. Now that you know where your shadow area is, make a mental note of its location, but donât click OK yet. Now to find a white area in your image.
- Step 11: If you canât find an area in your image that you know is supposed to be white, you can use the same technique to find the highlight areas. With the Threshold dialog still open, drag the slider all the way to the right. Your photo will turn black. Slowly drag the slider back toward the left, and as you do, youâll start to see some of your photo reappear. The first area that appears is the lightest part of your image. Make a mental note of this area as well (yes, you have to remember two things, but you have to admit, itâs easier than remembering two PIN numbers). Youâre now done with Threshold, so just click Cancel because you donât actually need the adjustment layer anymore.
- Step 12: Press Ctrl-L to bring up the Levels dialog again. First, select the shadow Eyedropper (the one half-filled with black) from the right side of the Levels dialog. Move your cursor outside the Levels dialog into your photo and click once in the area that Elements showed you was the darkest part of the photo (in Step 10). When you click there, youâll see the shadow areas correct. (Basically, you just reassigned the shadow areas to your new neutral shadow colorâthe one you entered earlier as a preference in Step Four.) If you click in that spot and your photo now looks horrible, you either clicked in the wrong spot or what you thought was the shadow point actually wasnât. Undo the setting of your shadow point by clicking the Reset button in the dialog and try again. If that doesnât work, donât sweat it; just keep clicking in areas that look like the darkest part of your photo until it looks right.
- Step 13: While still in the Levels dialog, click on the highlight Eyedropper (the one half-filled with white). Move your cursor over your photo and click once on the lightest part (the one you committed to memory in Step 11) to assign that as your highlight. Youâll see the highlight colors correct.
- Step 14: Now that the shadows and highlights are set, youâll need to set the midtones in the photo. It may not look as if you need to set them, because the photo may look properly corrected, but chances are thereâs a cast in the midtone areas. You may not recognize the cast until youâve corrected it and itâs gone, so itâs worth giving it a shot to see the effect (which will often be surprisingly dramatic). Unfortunately, thereâs no Threshold adjustment layer trick that works well for finding the midtone areas, so you have to use some good old-fashioned guesswork (or try âDaveâs Amazing Trick for Finding a Neutral Grayâ in this chapter). Ideally, thereâs something in the photo thatâs gray, but not every photo has a âgrayâ area, so look for a neutral area (one thatâs obviously not a shadow, but not a highlight either). Click the middle (gray) Eyedropper in that area. If itâs not right, click the Reset button and repeat Steps 12 through 14.
- Step 15: Thereâs one more important adjustment to make before you click OK in the Levels dialog and apply your correction. Under the Histogram (thatâs the black mountain-range-looking thing), click on the center slider (the Midtone Input Levels sliderâthatâs why itâs gray) and drag it to the left a bit to brighten the midtones of the image. This is a visual adjustment, so itâs up to you to determine how much to adjust, but it should be subtleâjust enough to bring out the midtone detail. When it looks right to you, click OK to apply your correction to the highlights, midtones, and shadows, removing any color casts and brightening the overall contrast.
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