Editing the Color of Images
By: Maricon Williams

A color portrays character. It depicts positive or negative emotion or symbolism. It reveals unspoken words. It can be friendly, nervous, angry, sad, comfortable and trusting. While it is simple to use colors but we must be very cautious in doing so because you can be misinterpreted when you unintentionally present a derogatory impression. The colors may oppose the substance of an image.

Colors influence our perception, interaction and even the way we feel. If you are sending the wrong impression with regards to your choose of colors, you can turn to Photoshop since it is the best tool for color correction.

How to make the color accurate? It’s easy. To start, open your image or photo in Photoshop. If you have a skilled eye, you can do the correction manually with tools like color balance or channel mixer. Variations immediately show you the different corrections available by selecting varying colors with different tones. By making the photo darker or lighter and comparing it with the original, you can be guided what to choose.

Selective color makes drastic changes you can hardly tell. Color balance is used to purposely skew towards a single color or just to balance out the image. You can also make adjustments on the shadow, midtones and highlights of the image. To do this, move the sliders towards the colors you need to bring up or balance.

With the power of Photoshop CS, you can use an already color corrected image to that of another with the new Match Color Adjustment. You can make color corrections or adjustments on the layer itself. First duplicate the layer or create an adjustment layer which will lay on top of the layer.

Channel mixer let you change the color channel attributes of every channel. For instance, you can introduce green within the red output channel. Each channel starts at 100% the other two at 0% from there you can make adjustments. Channel mixer makes diverse changes to achieve your desired color balance.

Power tools are there to balance the exposure with the curves, levels, brightness and contrast and even the auto functions of those commands. If you can make the initial corrections – go for it. Then make color corrections if still indispensable. Shadow/Highlight adjustment is also in the Photoshop CS. Try it and believe in its power of Photoshop to move expectators and even artists as well.

Make sure that your chosen colors are necessary and hit your expectations. As a rule of thumb, never use colors which do not support or add essence to the image and remain consistent with your color choices – that way you can be assured that you are on the right track!

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