Video:Elements Tutorial: How to Color-Correct an Image

Transcript:Elements Tutorial: How to Color-Correct an Image

Hi, I’m Pelpina, here for About.com. In this screen cast, I’ll show you how to color-correct an image in Adobe Photoshop Elements. When you’re in the edit workspace, you have 3 options to color correct your photo: you can do a guided edit, a quick edit, or full edit.

Guided Edit Color Correcting

Let’s first take a look at the guided edit. Just click right here.  There are several basic and advanced edit options here, and below there’s color and lighting - that’s where we need to be. As you can see, there are many different options: lighten and darken, enhance colors, correct skin color, and more. Depending on what your goal is with your picture, you just choose one of these options - I’ll go with enhance colors, but which ever one you click on, you’ll get a bunch of sliders on the right, and an auto button at the top. The auto button gives you an overall quick fix for the image - if that doesn’t work, or you don’t like the way it looks, you can drag the sliders to increase or decrease the effect you are looking for. When you’re happy with the result, just click done, right here below, and it will be applied to your image.  

Quick Edit Mode Color Correcting

Now let’s move to the quick edit mode. The smart fix option is a very neat tool that automatically enhances your image - just drag it along, and you’ll see the effect immediately. So if your image is a bit underexposed, a smart fix can help. Or, the lighting box over here also gives you several sliders to enhance your image, just like the color and balance options down here. 

Adjusting Lighting and Color

Another way to color correct your image in the quick edit or full edit mode -- and go to enhance at the top. There are several useful options here, but in particular: adjust lighting and adjust color. I’ll show you an example. With the adjust color for skin tone option, you get a small pop op menu which lets you adjust the color of the image for the best skin tone. First, move around the sliders to determine how tan and or blush the person is. Then, click on the skin in the image, and then - elements will automatically adjust the entire picture’s colors. Pretty neat, isn’t it! 

For more how-to videos on Elements, go to compute.about.com. Thanks for watching!