Page #177 (143. Fix a Flash That s Too Far Away)

Chapter 18. Correcting Color and Saturation

IN THIS CHAPTER:

144 Correct Color Manually

145 Correct Color, Contrast, and Saturation in One Step

146 Adjust Hue, Saturation, and Lightness Manually

147 Adjust Saturation for a Specific Area

Color balance is one of those features that's difficult to explain (to borrow a phrase from the U.S. Supreme Court), but you know it when you see it. Your eyes are accustomed to seeing the full spectrum of colors for any scene you happen to be looking at, at any time. This is true even if you're standing in a yellow room with yellow walls, yellow carpet, near a yellow sofa with yellow pillows. Your eyesliterallychemically manufacture the opposite colorpurpleto compensate for the over-saturation of a narrow range of color frequencies. This is why you can still see a faint image of something you've stared at for a long period of time when you look away from it. When the scene you're viewing is biased toward one color, your eyes and even your mind know how to compensate.

But your camera doesn't. If one of your digital photos has a particular color cast, such as yellow or red, it will typically not have the color balance your eyes expect to see if you were looking at the same scene. For example, a red color cast can happen when a picture is shot without enough light (such as a photo taken at sunset) or if you are working with an old photograph. Because color cast happens frequently, Photoshop Elements provides several tools you can use to restore the color balance to an image.