Operation Manual

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 12 CLASSROOM IN A BOOK 109
Adjusting the white balance
A color cast has the appearance of a tinted transparency overlaid on all the colors
in your photograph. For example, the blue-green tint commonly associated with
fluorescent lighting will be visible even on objects that should appear white, and
even white paper photographed under tungsten lighting will have a yellow-red
cast, as can be clearly seen in our lesson image.
To adjust the white point, or white balance, you need to identify what should be
a neutral tone in your photo—either a white object, or an area of gray that should
appear neither noticeably cool nor warm. Photoshop Elements will then recalcu-
late the color values across the entire image in relation to whatever pixels you’ve
defined as the new, color-neutral benchmark.
1 Choose Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove Color Cast.
e Remove Color Cast dialog box appears, and the pointer
becomes an eye-dropper cursor ( ).
2 Click with the eyedropper to sample the gray stripe in the uphol-
stery just behind the collar of the man’s jacket. If this introduces
too much blue, click the Reset button in the Remove Color Cast
dialog box and try again. Try targeting a slightly lighter or darker
tone. When you’re satisfied with the results, click OK to close the
Remove Color Cast dialog box.
3 Examine the color histogram. e histogram curve is much more balanced,
though the photo could still be improved. For now, save the corrected image as
DSC_0378_WhiteBalance.jpg, with all the usual settings; then, close the file.
Although blue and cyan
are still predominant
in the shadows, the
histogram curve is now
more unified, without
the dramatic separation
of colors you saw earlier.