# Tutorial - Color correction



## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

Here ive done a tutorial on colour-correcting photographs for beginners. It's nothing difficult and by the end of it, you might probably wonder why I even bothered to post something so simple. It's just something that I figured most hobbyist-photographers (like myself) would find useful if they had only just started out.

Alright, the image in the screenshot below is what I'll be using for this tutorial. You can pick out any image from your own collection to play with. If you've never colour-corrected your images before, I think you'd be amazed at what the outcome will be.

*Step 1*










Bring the photograph you want to colour-correct into Photoshop. What do you think of the image above? It looks pretty alright, yah? But, let's get on to Step 2.

*Step 2:*

Click on Image > Adjustments. In the menu that follows lies the 3 automatic commands that would do your photographs a world of good.










1. Auto Contrast - Improves the contrast of your photographs by making the highlights of the photo appear lighter and shadows appear darker.
2. Auto Color - Improves the colour cast of your photographs. If your photograph has a sickly green tinge to it, this command will remove it.
3. Auto Levels - The Auto Levels command automatically adjusts the black point and white point in an image.

Personally, when colour-correcting my photos, I'd run them through the first 2 commands and leave out the Auto Levels. I'd correct the Levels manually (we'll get to that later) instead. Since Auto Levels gives slightly different results, depending on the image, I had out-grown using it, but you can try it by all means.

As I mentioned above, trust your eyes. If it looks good to you, keep it.

That is… If you're not colour-blind. 

*Step 3:*

At this point, your image should look much better compared to the original. If it doesn't, your photograph must've looked perfect to begin with and you don't need this tutorial. 

But if your image is looking drastically better, here's how to make it pop out even more.

Click on Image > Adjustments > Levels.

Here you will see a histogram and 3 arrows at the bottom of it. Here's a condensed explanation of what the arrows do.










1. Shadows Level
Sliding this arrow to the right, nearer to the center of the histogram, makes the dark parts of your photograph darker: shadows, dark clothes, included.
2. Midtones Level
Sliding this arrow to the left makes the midtones of your photographs darker, while sliding it to the right makes the midtones brighter.
3. Highlights Level
Sliding this arrow to the left makes the highlights of your photograph brighter, and at a certain point, blown out. I rarely move this slider more than a few points to the left.

As this is a beginner's guide, we shall ignore the rest of the options for now and just focus on these 3 arrows.

Once again, I would tell you to trust your eyes and play around with the sliders to see what looks good to you. I recommend playing with the Shadows Level and Highlights Level sliders first as these two will give the best effects to your photograph.

For the photograph I used in this tutorial, I moved the Shadows Level slider to the right quite a lot to get the shadows to a darker shade and to give the overall image a deeper red/orange cast than it originally was. I didn't touch the other 2 sliders at all.

Regarding the Levels command, from Adobe Photoshop CS2 Extended's Help : "You use the Levels dialog box to correct the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of image shadows, midtones, and highlights."

I like my explanation better. 

*Step 4:*

Actually, that's it! No step 4. Hahaha. This is quite a long tutorial and I didn't think people would believe me if I typed that there were only 3 steps. 

So this is the final image after the colour-correcting.










Colour-correcting is quite a subjective thing and what looks good to one person might not look quite right to another. I chose to make the image above to be a deeper red/orange cast to further emphasise the setting of sun and more than any other reason, because I like how it looks.

There are many other ways to colour-correct your photographs, including using Curves and Hue/Saturation commands. The ones in this tutorial are those I personally use, and I use them all the time. They're almost enough that you don't have to even bother with the rest. 

*Before*


*After*


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## mattjonescardiff (Dec 12, 2006)

Very arty after shot, car looks much more menacing. Thanks for the guide. I'd love to be able to use Photoshop more so this is much appreciated. Keep them coming!

<<<<<200 posts! yay!


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## Deanoecosse (Mar 15, 2007)

Nice guide mate, my photoshop talents are limited to resizing a photo!
What version is that your using?, I have Photoshop 7.0 but I notice a lot of folk on here have CS and I dont know what the differences are?


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

im using photoshop cs2, and your best to check the adobe website to see what the differences are as its been that long since i used 7.0 i cant remember what they are


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## Leopold (Jun 27, 2007)

With your excellent tutorial, on how to colour-correcting photographs:thumb: , i fought that i would give it ago, what do you reckon?

Before: -










After: -










Cheers, Lee


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## dubnut71 (Jul 25, 2006)

worked for me mate, here is my before:









And my after!!!!










Excellent guide, I thank you for the knowledge!!:thumb: :thumb:


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## bimmer (Dec 14, 2006)

It would look better if u put the car in a separate layer first, so that it stands out more, and not darkens with the background. Quick example:


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## dubnut71 (Jul 25, 2006)

bimmer, how did you select the car mate??


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## bimmer (Dec 14, 2006)

It will be kinda hard when the contrast between car/background is very small, but you can select it with either:

1 - The magic wand tool (hold shift to add parts to the selection, press ctrl+Z to go back a step)
(the button is hidden behind the dropdown menu in the picture)

2 - Magnetic lasso tool (Press Backspace to go back a step)

3 - Once the whole car is selected, copy and paste the car into a new layer.

4 - Choose "Layer --> New --> Layer" in the top menu.

It takes some practice at first, but you'll get the hang of it.


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

dubnut71 said:


> worked for me mate, here is my before:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


quality attempt man


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

SierraGhia said:


> With your excellent tutorial, on how to colour-correcting photographs:thumb: , i fought that i would give it ago, what do you reckon?
> 
> Before: -
> 
> ...


honmestly man i think youve made the pic worse, and you dont have to do it in 2 layers or select the car seperatly


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## *MAGIC* (Feb 22, 2007)

dubnut71 said:


> worked for me mate, here is my before:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thats amazing i must get PS :thumb:


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

up we go again to give a little more help to people


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

to the top again


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