147. Adjust Saturation for a Specific Area See Also  144 Correct Color Manually
145 Correct Color, Contrast, and Saturation in One Step 146 Adjust Hue, Saturation, and Lightness Manually
If you want to adjust the saturation in specific areas of an image, you can do so quickly using the Sponge tool. With the Sponge tool, you drag the mouse pointer over the area of the image you want to change. It either adds saturation to the area or removes saturation. Although it's called a sponge, you control this tool's shape and size as you do with any of the brush tools. You can select its brush type and size from the Options bar. The larger the brush size, the more area you can change at once. Photoshop Elements provides several different sizes and types of brushes you can select when using the Sponge tool.  Imagine if the color in a photograph were liquid, like India ink held in place by black pixels. The Sponge tool either absorbs colored "liquid" from spots in the image or adds new "liquid" of the same color to spots in the image. From the Options bar, you instruct the tool to remove color (Desaturate) or add color (Saturate). The Flow setting is actually metaphorical: It designates how much color is removed or added to a spot for each brushstroke. This setting is comparable to the Opacity setting of the Brush and Pencil tools. 1. | Select the Sponge Tool
Open the image you want to correct in the Editor in Standard Edit mode and save it in Photoshop (*.psd) format. In the Layers palette, choose the layer whose color you want to adjust. Select the Sponge tool from the Toolbox.
| 2. | Choose Options
Click the down arrow next to the brush sample in the Options bar and select the desired brush tip for the Sponge tool. Select a brush with a feathered edge so that there is a gradual change between the areas where you use the Sponge tool and the adjoining pixels.
From the Mode drop-down list, select either Saturate or Desaturate. If you want to intensify the color in an area, select Saturate. If you want to dull the colors in an area, select Desaturate.
The Flow setting regulates the intensity of the Sponge tool. When Mode is set to Saturate, the Flow value represents how much saturation is added to a spot, relative to its current saturation. Theoretically, you could apply stroke after stroke until an area is saturated as fully as possible. When Mode is set to Desaturate, the Flow value represents how much saturation is removed from a spot. When set to 100%, the tool removes all color from an area, leaving only grayscale pixels.
| 3. | Apply Sponge to Image
Begin the "sponge stroke" by clicking and holding the mouse button where you want to start applying the Sponge tool. For a pen tablet, position the pointer by hovering the pen, and then tap and hold the pen where you want the stroke to begin.
To apply a freehand stroke, continue holding the button down as you drag the mouse. The tool follows your mouse pointer. To end the stroke, release the mouse button; with a pen tablet, lift the pen.
When you're satisfied with the results, make any other changes you want and save the PSP file. Resave the result in JPEG or TIFF format, leaving your PSD image with its layers (if any) intact so that you can return at a later time and make different adjustments if you want. In this example, the features on the diver's face were too saturated and looked overly red. I wanted to reduce that effect to make the image appear more balanced. To accomplish this, I selected the Sponge tool and chose Desaturate from the Mode drop-down list and set the Flow at 75%. I then used the Sponge tool on the face of the diver.
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