Adjusting Temperature

The temperature of a photo refers to your perception of which wavelengths of light illuminate the scene in a photo. That's a roundabout way of saying that the Temperature slider lets you adjust the colors of a photo from cool (bluish) to warm (yellowish).

To adjust the temperature of a photo:

• In the Adjust panel, drag the Temperature slider to the left to make the colors cooler and bluer or the right to make them warmer and more yellow.

What the Temperature slider does

Figure 4.43 is a picture of a Christmas tree taken indoors with incandescent light, which resulted in too-warm tones. By decreasing the temperature a bit in Figure 4.44, I've compensated for the overly yellow cast.

Figure 4.43. The strong incandescent light in this photo resulted in an overly yellow cast.

Figure 4.44. Lowering the temperature compensated for the extra yellow, bringing the photo back down to a more neutral color.

When you decrease the temperature, as I've done here, the green mountain range stays put, the blue mountain range moves to the right to increase the amount of blue in the photo, and the red mountain range moves to the left to decrease the amount of red. If you increase temperature, the red mountain range move to the right to increase the yellow and the blue mountain range moves to the left to decrease the amount of blue.

Tip

• Daylight is considered neutral, so it's most likely you'll need to adjust the temperature of artificially lit photos. Indoor lighting may give a yellow cast to your photos, whereas flash lighting may provide a bluish cast.

What Else Would I Do?

Since there is a lot of detail in the Christmas tree, I'd also increase the sharpness to bring out the edges of the needles, lights, and ornaments.