Cannot select tones in Color Balance adjustment layer

I'm not able to select the tone menu in the color balance tool. Is this a bug?

It was the tone pulldown menu when I used color balance as an adjustment layer. But it's now working for me. I just restarted the app.

Similar Messages

Selecting Color Balance adjustment layer brings up Levels adjustment layer

Ok, so, all of a sudden I cannot get a color balance adjustment layer to come up. Every time I do photoshop creates a levels layer. Selecting levels makes a levels layer. All of the other adjustment layers seem to be working normally. How do I fix this? I have a deadline and no time to be reinstalling photoshop.

Reinstalling the application seldom helps, and re-installing without trashing your preferences is futile as you end up right where you started.
I understand your frustrartion, but please remember that you are not addressing Adobe here in this user to user forum.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Excerpt from that link:
• Do not be abusive or aggressive in your tone
An aggressive or abusive sounding post will often evoke an aggressive or abusive and unhelpful reply
Remember, you are requesting help from other users, just like you, who are giving their time free of charge. No one is under any obligation to answer your question.
Thanks!

Color balance adjustment layer opening as levels

When I try creating a color balance adjustment layer is it opening a levels adjustment layer. I'm using the New Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers panel. Is this a bug with CS6? How can I fix the problem?

This is the process that I go through:
Selecting the adjustment icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel, as shown below.
I select color balance, as shown below.
The properties panel is brought up, and shows the color balance adjustment controls.
In your properties panel, are your saying when you follow the above, that level adjustments come up?
Janelle

Color Balance Adjustment Layer to blend faces?

I'm using 2 different images of 2 different people, and layer masking features from one person on to another. Afterwards, I play with the levels a little bit, though the skin tones from the different features are still off. I tried using a Color Balance Adjustment Layer, though I'm not really sure what to look for. I'm just eyeballing it, though are there any guidelines for doing something like this?
1. Should I be adjusting the midtones, shadows or highlights?
2. I added a little bit of red, is there ever a time when you might add add magenta or green to blend skin tone? What about yellow or blue?
3. Any other general tips for doing this?
Thanks.

What version of PS are you using? I think there were a couple versions that variations was removed. If you have it, it should be done on the layer that you want to adjust the color, but I would make that layer a smart object first, so you could undo what ever you did.

Color balance adjustment layer

When selecting the shadows, midtowns, or highlights, how does PS distinguish between these areas? If I choose to adjust just the shadows, what part is of my image color is in the shadows?
Thanks.

It goes strictly by the luminance of each pixel. If the pixel is dark, it's considered "shadows"; middle brightness pixels are considered "midtones", and the lightest pixels are considered "highlights". I have no idea what the ranges actually are, but they do overlap.
Experiment. You just have to get a feel for it.
-Noel

Color Balance Adj Layer Characteristics Changed from CS4- CS5?

Maybe some guru with better connections to Adobe knows the answer to this. (or maybe I just forgot).
I just discovered (and I don't think it is pilot error) that the characteristic behavior of the Color Balance Adjustment Layer is different in CS5 than it was in CS4/CS3. (Much stronger in CS4/CS3).
In addition, there is also an associated behavior that is like a buried legacy mode that is not made visible to the user. Here is what I mean.
If I create an image in CS4 with a single Color Balance Adj Layer, I get an adjusted image.
If I open that same PSD file in CS5, the same image is displayed.
If I use the same base image, yet create the Color Balance Adj Layer from within CS5, the adjusted image is different than the prior two.   So the Color Adjustment Layer acts like it has a hidden legacy mode where the characteristics are one type if created in CS4/CS3 yet a different characteristic if created in CS5.
My mind might be slipping (or my cold has the better of me) because I do not remember this as a documented change and I searched the internet for "What's new in CS5" etc etc. I don't remember anything on other forums about this either.
I guess the good news is, the new characteristic of the Color Balance Adjustment Layer is better behaved with a transfer curve with less clipping for highlights and shadows. Very similar to the better behavior of the change of the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer going from CS2 to CS3.
Here are some comparison images.
This is the Layer Stack Used with Base Image of simple B to W gradient with CB Layer on top with just the highlights pegged to red. This is the exact same Layer Stack for all of the images shown:
Here is the first image. This was created in PS CS4 and displayed from CS4 with the conditions show above:
This is the same image from above that was saved as PSD with profile and them imported to PS CS5 with same profile. There was no change:
This next image is using the same base gradient, yet then creating the CB Layer from within PS CS5 with the same parameters, only the Red pegged for the Highlights:
Does someone have an easy answer for this. Can someone duplicate this and confirm the change from CS4 to CS5. A test by someone else would either confirm I am off base with pilot error or there is something to this.
And yes, all the images were sRGB and kept in sRGB for creation/display. All Screenshot images were the images brought up side by side on the same color managed monitor.   All Edit > Color Settings were identical.
Thanks in advance for any help
John

OK, Chris, but before I perform my act of self flaggelation for the benefit for all and my extra embarrassment, let me add in some useful information about the Color Balance Adj Layer that could be helpful.
I was working with another individual who wanted a better understanding the color balance adj layer, what is was exactly doing, how the shadows, midtones, and highlights interacted, and the differences with preserve luminosity checked or not, and also why the preserve luminosity was so hard to predict (e.g. did not really preserve luminoisty).
Without going into the deails of all of that, the tidbit I will leave as far as penance for my stupid original post above is that the Color Balance Adj Layer with the Preserve Luminosity box checked does a reasonable job or preserving luminoisty for the midtone adjustments yet definitely does not for the shadow and highlight adjustments.
An easy workaround for this is to just set the Color Balance Adj Layer Blend to Color which preserves Luminosity of the image presented from lower layers while maintaining the Color as best it can from using the CB Adj Layer (It holds the Hue and does its best to keep the same Saturation yet the Luminoisty from the presented image from lower layers takes prescendence). This does a much better job at preserving Luminosity than using the checkbox option.    I usually use this approach and keep the Preserve Luminiosity box turned off.
The error that I made was during the fairly involved exchange with this other individual, at some point I accidentally set the Layer Mask for the CB Adj Layer to 50% gray and did not notice that it had changed from the default white. Much further down the line, when this other individual could not exactly recreate my results, he mentioned working in CS3. Thinking this odd, I pulled up CS3, created the image from scratch (without the erroneous mask change to 50% gray) so therefore I duplicated his results and did not realize the error was in my original Layer Stack. To make a long story short, I went and checked for differences in all system settings, profiles, Color Settings, opacity settings, Blend settings, Layer Style settings (and their options) etc, etc and overlooked a change in the Mask gray level.       When I quickly flashed back and forth between the two documents/stack it finally popped out at me. Mea Culpa.

FR: color temperature adjustment layer

I know there are 5 million methods to adjust colors in PS, but I would really prefer a simple (and almost scientific) method like the color temperature adjustment in ACR (with the green-magenta color cast adjustment).
Ideally, PS would read the current color temperature from the EXIF data (and adjust to any adjustment layers below), and give the option to pick a neutral pixel (and display the color shift based on that). in case there is no original color temp available, the grey pixel picker could be used to establish a base value, and give the user at least relative color shift values (or the user could enter the values by hand from ACR).
The reason for this is that most (pro) photographers probably know the color temp of their environments (lights, ambient, gels etc) (or can read those values from ACR), so adjusting values in regards to kelvin would make things much more precise than the ambivalent values of e.g. the color balance adjustment.

What I was asking is a different method to achieve the same results what is possible with levels/curves/color balance etc without going into lab mode. (btw, the lack of a grey picker and the zoned approach of color balance isn't ideal sometimes)
thank you for reminding me that I need to brush up on my color theory. your reply has a tone of "why are you asking this, there are already tools for this" which I find a bit too conservative, when my intention is to make PS even more user friendly... if we would go with your paradigm, we wouldn't need levels, because everybody could just use curves, and yet both are very popular and often used based on the users preferences.
what I am asking is bringing the white balance settings from ACR into an adjustment layer, with all it's implications.
it would enable users to specifically balance images with mixed light sources (with the proposed color temp/WB adjustment layer with it's mask) by entering values in kelvin, and not some arbitrary numbers from 0-1 or 0-255. it would be so much easier to balance tungsten to daylight by adding 2000 kelvin to the image, or to control a straw gel that was added somewhere in the scene. I can imagine so many applications for this adjustment layer...

Quick Tip - Color Lookup Adjustment Layer in Photoshop CS6 | The Complete Picture with Julieanne Kost | Adobe TV

In this Quick Tip, Julieanne demonstrates the new Color Lookup Adjustment layer and walks you through how to download a template to quickly apply these new “looks” to your images. The files she references can be found here. http://adobe.ly/Ng3afA
http://adobe.ly/LiGadT

Can the Camera Calibration tech. in LR be used to keep IR raw images looking like the jogs on back of camera?

Colorizing hair with Color Balance Layer VS. Paintbrush?

I'm following a tutorial and want to change the color of someone's hair, so I make a color balance adjustment layer, change the color, press option delete, and then paint over the hair with white to make this color come back. How is this all different from just getting the paint brush tool on a new layer and painting over the hair? Isn't the end result the same and a bit easier?
Thanks.

Both methods work
The masked method may take longer, but get you better results, because you can stack various color corrections as in the screenshot below. You can also do more like turn a brunette into a blond with the mask method. With the paintbrush I would not attempt such a correction.
If you have a low budget job with 100s of images, you may just want to use the paintbrush set to a color mode.

Best equivalent to Photoshop's Color Balance dialog

I'm trying to understand what's the most equivalent function to Photoshop's Color Balance dialog in Lightroom 2. e.g. suppose I move the Cyan/Red a bit toward the red to make the image more 'redish'. What LR2 action will produce similar results?
thanks!
David
PS: for reference, this is what the dialog looks like in CS2:

Photoshop does Color Balance with far more detail and multiple-input fine tuning options than LR, obviously. I mean look at the screen shot and all the options available there.
But in very general terms, and often, for many photographs and many shooters, this is all the Color Balance adjustment they need, moving LR's Develop>WB Temp to the right would have a similar effect to moving Cyan-Red to the right. Both should warm the shot. (Try moving these sliders while watching caucasian faces shot in outdoor light in the winter in the north... they'll go from pale to a slightly glowing tan to ruddy. Or white t-shirts or snow will go from a white or bluish-white to a pinkish-white in ordinary daylight.)
Just to keep you on your toes, moving the Tint slider to the left in LR's Develop>WB Tint will give a similar effect to moving Photoshop's Magenta-Green to the right. (YMMV of course, but personally, with a RAW shot taken with a Canon camera and no color profile sliders moved in the camera, I find moving the Tint slider in LR rarely helps a shot look better and so I usually leave that one untouched... but I often do warm shots to varying degrees using the Temp slider. I think some greyscale workers, or some color workers going for highly creative effects, like to use the Tint slider more than I do.)
Photoshop's Yellow-Blue would also, I believe, change the warming effect using different tones than Cyan-Red, similar to LR's Develop>WB Temp, again working in the opposite direction. The advantage of having two sliders that can warm or cool an image in Photoshop is that you can adjust the degree of yellow separate from red in warming, to give more or less of an orange tone to your warming as desired.
Amping up those Color Levels windows in Photoshop might give a similar effect to boosting Vibrance or Saturation in LR>Develop, though in Photoshop you can tinker with separate levels for separate primary tones, which in LR you could only try to approximate with Develop>Camera Calibration.
All these sliders may have unintended effects if your monitor and printer are not calibrated, or to the extent that you're using consumer-priced monitors or printers where color balance can be dicey at best.

Layer mask missing from my adjustment layer

Hello Photoshop gang,
Sometimes when I make an Adjustment layer (like a Vibrance Adjustment) the layer will either have or not have an attached layer mask thumbnail. It lately is NOT showing a layer mask thumbnail. When I have an active selection and then make an Adjustment Layer, it then does have an attached Layer Mask Thumbnail. On another computer, I do the same Adjustment Layer creation, and it DOES automatically have a Layer Mask thumbnail. What is happening on this one computer that causes it to NOT have the Layer Mask thumbnail?
Hope this is clear enough!
Mike Witherell in Silver Spring, MD

There's a preference for whether you want a layer mask automatically added.
Look in the ADJUSTMENTS panel's fly out menu:
-Noel

Why doesn't my Color Balance tool work anymore?

I've been working in Photoshop CS6 for two years and have never had issues with a tool not working. This past week I've noticed the Color Balance adjustment won't work at all. I've tried restarting my computer but that didn't help. I've searched for answers on my own but can't find anything. It seems very odd to me and I really don't know what is going on. Maybe someone knows something I don't know? It's putting my work behind. The only thing I can think of is I recently had my laptop cleaned out so it runs like new again. After that I reinstalled Photoshop CS6. This problem didn't start until I reinstalled it. I'm hoping I didn't do something wrong when installing it. Everything else works just fine.

I pressed the Reset New in CS6 button and it's working now. Crossing my fingers it keeps working!

Alt + Create new Fill or Adjustment Layer CC2014

Alt + Create new Fill or Adjustment Layer Photoshop CC2014 not working
In Photoshop CS6 I can click on the Alt key and select Create new Fill or Adjustment Layer to create a new adjustment layer with options, but when I try the same in Photoshop CC2014 clicking the Alt doesn't work that way, is there something that I'm doing wrong or maybe there's another shortcut key that I'm unaware of. Is there another way to do the same thing as CS6
System Spec
Windows Pro 8.1
16 GB RAM
300 GB Scratch Disk
2GB Graphics Card
Everything up to date

It also work in Photoshop CC like in CS6 but not in CC 2014 it seem to be a bug.

CS4 - Color Sampler readout with Adjustment Layer selected?

I'm not sure if this is a setting, or a bug, or the way adobe intended it, but perhaps some of you may know.
In Photoshop CS4, I have a few color samplers around the stage. I notice that the color readouts require that I make some adjustments using a curves layer. I add the curves adjustment layer and start to make adjustments. The only problem is that while I have an adjustment layer selected (so I can make changes to it) my color sampler readouts in the info panel display blank.
In previous version of photoshop this was not the case as you could open the adjustment dialog without actually having that adjustment layer selected. I love the new adjustment layer panel, but its really frustrating having to make some changes to an adjustment layer and then select another layer to see what those changes did to the color samplers, and back and forth, and back and forth.
Does anyone have a fix for this? Is it a bug? Is there a reason that CS4 functions this way?

I'm not sure if this is a setting, or a bug, or the way adobe intended it, but perhaps some of you may know.
In Photoshop CS4, I have a few color samplers around the stage. I notice that the color readouts require that I make some adjustments using a curves layer. I add the curves adjustment layer and start to make adjustments. The only problem is that while I have an adjustment layer selected (so I can make changes to it) my color sampler readouts in the info panel display blank.
In previous version of photoshop this was not the case as you could open the adjustment dialog without actually having that adjustment layer selected. I love the new adjustment layer panel, but its really frustrating having to make some changes to an adjustment layer and then select another layer to see what those changes did to the color samplers, and back and forth, and back and forth.
Does anyone have a fix for this? Is it a bug? Is there a reason that CS4 functions this way?

Changing skin tones with adjustment layer fails

Hi,
I am running PS CC 2014 and all I want to do is to adjust a skin tone to match it to the rest of the bodys skin color.
I have watched some videos on YouTube but my PS doesnt seem to work that way and I wonder why.
My workflow:
Copy background layer.
Quick select area of body where skin tone has to be changed
(If necessary: improve selection)
Now create adjustment layer with gradiation curve
Select with double click midtone pipette and select one point of the "good skin tone" (also pressing CTRL at the same time when selecting it)
Confirm with OK.
Reject box which wants to take over skin tone as standard color.
Click with pipette in the previously selected skin area which has to be changed.
Instead of adjusting the color into a good skin color, this area turns into a strange orange color.
All I can do now is to walk through the single RGB channels to makle adjustments and hope to get anywhere
near the expected result.
Where have I gone wrong ? Where does the orange color come from ?
Any proposals how to get to a reasonable result ?
Preferably with this workflow. But all other ideas are welcome, too.
Thx.
Arnold.

For what it's worth: I have found that when sculptural modeling is involved, such as the in the hand, working with Curves in LAB (where tone is discrete from color) produces the color change more naturally and provides greater control over local contrast. You may want to consider that alternate approach. In this sample, the left forearm provided the reference color and I chose to lighten the tonal scale a bit.
One off-topic comment: A shorter than normal focal length lens creates a foreshortening that makes near objects disproportionately large in relation to the rest of the object or scene. In this instance, consider its effect on the hand-head sizes. I would suggest that a focal length at least 1 1/2 times normal would be more appropriate.
Good luck.

Cannot select tones in Color Balance adjustment layer

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