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Chapter 11

Adjusting Colors

Chapter Lessons

• Correct and adjust color

• Enhance colors by altering saturation

• Modify color channels using levels

• Create color samplers with the Info panel

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• Use color-enhancing tools to change the mood or personality of a color by changing its tonal values

• Tonal values (also called color levels):– Numeric values of an individual color– Used to duplicate a color

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Enhancing Color

• Use color adjustment tools to specify exactly how colors should appear when printed

• Colors levels are modified by making adjustments to the input and output levels

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Reproducing Colors

• Balancing color:– Add and subtract colors from those

already existing in a layer– Correct oversaturated or undersaturated

color– Remove color casts from an image

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Correct and Adjust Color

• Contains three sliders:– Cyan-Red– Magenta-Green– Yellow-Blue

• Adjust colors by dragging sliders or typing values in the Color Levels text boxes

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Color Balance Dialog Box

• Alter the output tonal value of any pixel input

• Change as many as 16 points along the 0-255 scale in the Curves Adjustments panel– Horizontal axis: original intensity

values (Input levels)– Vertical axis: modified color values

(Output levels)

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Modifying Curves

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Active Setting

Values for Active Setting

Curves Settings

• Create an adjustment layer

• Experiment with color corrections:– Adjust the color sliders and view

changes to the image– Modify the curves

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Analyzing Colors

• In the Variations dialog box, view thumbnails of color variations while making color adjustments

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Variations Dialog Box

• Purity of a particular color

• The higher the saturation level, the more intense the color

• Modify color saturation using:– The Hue/Saturation dialog box– Sponge tool

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Enhance Colors by Altering Saturation

• Use to increase or decrease the color saturation of a specific area within a layer

• Sponge tool settings include:– Brush size– Saturation or de-saturation levels– Speed with which the color flows into

or from the Sponge tool

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Using the Sponge Tool

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Reds Saturated

Before After

Saturation Example

• Hue is the amount of color that is reflected from an object– Assigned a measurement from 0 to

360 degrees– Described in terms of tints or shades

(red, yellow-green, blue, gold, etc.)

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Understanding Hue

• In the Hue/Saturation dialog box use the following sliders:– Hue– Saturation– Lightness

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Adjusting Hue/Saturation

• Use the Hue/Saturation settings to apply grayscale tones to an object in an image

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Object in Grayscale

Converting to Grayscale

• Use the Levels settings to make adjustments across a tonal range:– Uses the composite color channel or

individual channel

• The Levels feature uses a histogram and displays light and dark color values on a linear scale

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Modify Color Channels Using Levels

• A graph that represents the frequency distribution of colors in an image

• Adjustments are made to the input and output levels

• Plotted data indicates the total number of pixels for a given tonal value

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Histograms

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Histogram showing

plotted data

Levels Dialog Box

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• Levels settings contains six sliders that are used to make color adjustments:• Shadows slider• Midtones slider• Highlights slider• Output shadows slider• Output highlights slider

Using Sliders

• Use the Color Sampler tool to sample and store up to four distinct color samples– Apply each of the four color samples to

an image– Use the samples to make color

adjustments

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Create Color Samples with the Info Panel

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• Each sample represented by a number

Sample 1

Sample 2

Color Samples

• Displays the following information:– Actual color values for current color mode

– CMYK values

– X & Y coordinates of the pointer location

– Width and height of a selection

• Info panel expands to show color measurement information when a color sample is created

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Info Panel

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RGB Color Values

Pointer Coordinates

CMYK Color Values

Width & HeightColor

Samplers

Info Panel

• Move a color sampler by dragging the sampler icon to a new location:– Color value information is updated in

the Info panel

• Delete any of the samplers

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Manipulating Color Samplers