Operation Manual

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 12 CLASSROOM IN A BOOK 107
Assessing a photo’s color balance
Artificial light, unusual shooting conditions, and incorrect camera settings can
all result in unwelcome color casts in an image. Unless your camera is properly
set up to compensate for current weather conditions, photos shot on an overcast
day may have a flat, bluish cast due to a deficiency in the warmer colors, while the
“golden” light of late-afternoon sunshine can produce an overly warm appearance.
Fluorescent lighting is notorious for producing a dull, greenish tint.
In this exercise, you’ll work with an image that has the opposite problem: a warm
yellow-red cast commonly seen in indoor shots captured under tungsten lighting.
We’ll start with a look at the Balance controls in the Quick edit mode.
1 To switch to Quick edit mode, click Quick in the mode above the editing pane.
In Quick edit mode, choose Window > Reset panels.
2 Choose File > Open. Navigate to your Lesson 4 folder; then, select the image
DSC_0378.jpg and click Open.
3 In the Adjustments panel at the right of the Quick edit workspace,
expand the Balance panel. Color imbalances are defined in terms of an
image’s temperature and tint; the Balance panel has a separate control
pane for adjusting each of these attributes. For now, make sure that the
Temperature tab is selected just below the panel’s header.
e grid of preview thumbnails shows the full range of variation possible
with this control. Clicking the central thumbnail resets an image to its
original state—a blue frame highlights the currently selected setting.
4 Move the pointer over each preview thumbnail in the grid in turn
to see that level of adjustment applied temporarily to the image in the
work area. A white frame highlights the setting currently previewed.
5 Click the Tint tab above the slider control and explore the variations.
E
Tip: You can preview
and apply incremental
settings between the
levels represented by
the preview thumbnails
by dragging the slider
left or right.
The color temperature
of an image accounts
for casts ranging from
cool blue to hot orange-
red; “tint” refers to casts
ranging from yellow-
green to magenta-pink.