This tutorial deals with the correcting color in images to suit your preferences.
We will start with this photo and you can see that
the color is way too red as it was scanned from a catalog.
Step 1
First we need to reduce the red, in dealing with
an image that has fleshtone, the face is the best feature to concentrate
on. In some cases, using the Gamma reduction will take care
of the problem but since the quality of the picture is not entirely red,
the better choice is the 'Color Balance. In PSP use the 'Color' menu,
'Adjust' and 'Color Balance'.
Move the image in the view pane so that you can
see the face. Slide the 'Red' slide to the left until you have reduced
it suffieiently, then reduce the magent color that results to the right
to tone down the hair and skin, then because increasing the green leave
a bluish cast, you need to decrease the blue by moving it toward the yellow.
You may have to make several adjustments before you are happy with the
image in the right pane (I find that adjustment by 10 are favorable).
These settings will not correct the color saturation and more likely than
not, the image is still too dark, but when the color tones are correct,
clik okay. Your image result would be something like this:
Step 2
Now that you have the color tones pretty close to
right but they are too dark, you want to reduce the saturation which will
lighten the image. Here again you could choose to just lighten the
image but I find that in most instances - when you lighten the image you
need to balance that by increasing or decreasing the saturation, so you
might as well start there in the first place.
Use the 'Color' menu and choose 'Adjust | Hue/Saturation/Lightness.
Move the image in the right pane so you can see the focal point of the
image (the most inportant part of the image to you). The starting
place is the saturation. You will notice that as you decrease the
'saturation' the image, if you go too far it starts loosing color so you
want to only move it a little ways and then counter the move by using the
'Lightness' control. Generally (not always) you will move the
two setting in different direction. When you are please with the
combination of the settings you chose, click OK. The combination
of the two tools will improve the over all coloring but you may loose some
sharpness or it may not have been too sharp in the first place - but you
will see the difference by comparing the beginning pic with the second
and this one:
Step 3
Now I'm totally happy with the coloring but the
clarity doesn't meet my standards. At this point you could use the
sharpen, but since PSP's 'sharpen' can over sharpen in some cases, I prefer
to use the 'Clarify' tool especially when dealing with photos or fleshtones.
Use the 'Effects' menu and choose 'Enhance Photo | Clarify'.
Move the image in the right pane until you can see
the focal point of the graphic. Start with the setting of '1' and
increment by one until the image start to look bad, then back it off one
number at a time until you have the setting you are happy with. By
starting with '1' and moving it one number at a time, you get to see the
result of each increment and will be more apt to notice the moment it starts
to overdo. When it's right for you, click OK. You should now
have a color balanced, properly saturated and clear image to work with,
like this:
Now your image is ready to clean for other uses. You could have stopped after anyone of the steps but by following through, you achieve the best combination.
Below you can see the actual changes as they were
made left to right.
original
after color balance
after saturation/lightness after clarification
tutorial by CSGreen
image was supplied by Flutterbug.
Zipped PDF tutorial 406KB
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* I do not generally compress my graphics but for the sake of loading time - the tutorial graphics are compressed!