Color Correcting in Photoshop

I know everyone has a different method of color correcting their photos. I have a way of doing this, but I was wondering if there was a "standard" way of color correction? Can anyone point me to any online resources or books I can find at the library to do this properly? Thank you.

In Levels, Opt+clicking while dragging the end points are very useful to set black and white end points in the Histogram.
In Curves, middle adjustments control gamma/brightness/contrast. A lot of people also correct color in Curves, but I rarely do.
In the Info pallet, if you can get the black/neutral/white points to display near equal numbers -- 0,0,0 128,128,128, 255,255,255 for example -- most of your color correcting will already be done.
Selective Color (set to Absolute) is also very useful to learn about to pick a color (like red, for example) and work on skin tone. Selecting Black here (and neutraling the Black numbers is also a major part of color balancing photos.
Working in 16-bit, Adjustment Layers is also recommended...

Similar Messages

Color Correction in photoshop through scripting

Dear Sir
I am sathya Murthy
Again i have some problem which should answered by scripting experts like you.
1. I have lots of images to be colour corrected.
2. Each image requires different type of corrections manually.
I need a scripting which does following things to me
1. As i run the script it should ask where photos or images are there.
2. As I show the folder it should create a sub folder in the images folder where photos are there
    for colour corrected photos to move there. only uncorrected photos should be there in the images folder
    colour corrected photos should move to new sub folder created with the name Colour Correction Finished.
3. First I want to Apply
     1. Auto Colour
    After Applying Auto Colour
   I Want to Apply
      2. Levels
where I will manually adjust the levels after i Finish off with levels
      I want to apply
      3. Curves
   Here also i manually adjust the curves
   Last I want to apply
      4. Brightness Contrast
    Here also i manually adjust the brightness and contrast
Note: Again I say
         The order for photo correction should be same the steps in correcting photos should not be interchanged.
           1. Auto Colour
           2. Levels
           3. Curves
           4. Brightness Contrast
After I finish with all these the photo should be saved and moved to new sub folder named Colour Correction Finished
and start with the next image.
Some times the image is corrected with auto colour and brightness contrast this time i must be able to cancel levels and curves
some times brightness contrast also.
If i cancel all the four opening of the next image in folder should be stopped and the opened image should not be saved or moved to
Colour Correction Finished Folder and i must be able to start from where i have stopped correcting the images. if Colour Correction Finished folder
is created don't ask to create the folder again.
If there is a same file existing in the Colour Correction Finished Folder Prompt me by saying file exists save it with another name.
Scripting for this will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Sathya Murthy

Dear Sathya Murthy
You wrote that your a Newbie to scripting. Are you also a Newbie to Photoshop?   Are you a Programmer? If your not a Programmer I think you should look at Photoshop Action feature. Actions are easy to record and edit. Adobe also supplies a Image Processor Script to help you process your images without having to get into scripting.   This Script will process your image files you point it at and save output images files where you point it to. You can have it include Actions you create during the process. There is also a Free Image Processor Pro script you can download from Rusell Brown's web site the has more function. It is a simple mater to record action that will do Photoshop steps like Auto Colour, Levels, Curves, Brightness Contrast etc. These steps can be made interactive or use recorded setting for these adjustments. No programming knowledge is needed.
Please reply with more information about your Photoshop useage in knowledge.

Color correction in Photoshop

Hello,
I’m having a problem trying to figure out who to ensure I have identical color casts across multiple shots. I shoot raw and use a grey card to white balance in ACR and that works great, but the problem is when I’m in Photoshop and use curves to get more contrast in the photo by setting the white and black points. What appears to be the perfect setting for one shot may not be the perfect setting for the next shot and my pictures end up with just a slight difference in the hue. It’s not noticeable if you view the photo’s one at a time but when you view them in a slide show it’s apparent (to me at least). I’m probably missing a crucial step so if anyone can help me out I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!
-RZ

Dear Sathya Murthy
You wrote that your a Newbie to scripting. Are you also a Newbie to Photoshop? Are you a Programmer? If your not a Programmer I think you should look at Photoshop Action feature. Actions are easy to record and edit. Adobe also supplies a Image Processor Script to help you process your images without having to get into scripting. This Script will process your image files you point it at and save output images files where you point it to. You can have it include Actions you create during the process. There is also a Free Image Processor Pro script you can download from Rusell Brown's web site the has more function. It is a simple mater to record action that will do Photoshop steps like Auto Colour, Levels, Curves, Brightness Contrast etc. These steps can be made interactive or use recorded setting for these adjustments. No programming knowledge is needed.
Please reply with more information about your Photoshop useage in knowledge.

Snow Leopard's Default Gamma & Color Correcting for Pre Press in Photoshop CS4

After searching the forums I thought I would start my own thread on this subject.
I have Photoshop CS4 and InDesign CS4 and I have continued to color correct, for pre press, in OS 10.4.11 Tiger with the 1.8 Default Gamma and 6500 color tempurature, using Apple's display calibration tools in the OS's System Preferances.
I want to switch to Snow Leaopard but with it's Defualt Gamma of 2.2, I'm not able to make my minitor manually adjust to the needed range for brightness and contrast that is needed to begin the calibration process. Is there a way to color correct photos, for pre pre press, in Photoshop with a 2.2 Gamma setting in my display preferances?

I have had success just with Apple's System Preferences for color calibration. I do design and pre press for a number of customers of the various printers I work with. Most of the photos I work with are from digital cameras and are provided by the customer. The only point in the whole process, where the photos get adjusted to have eye pleasing color, when coming off the printing press, is when I work with them.
The printers I work with continue to send their customers to me, for design and pre press, because they like my color work on the photos. I send the pre press files as Press Optimized PDFs to the printer's FTP server and the printer does all the direct to plate separations in-house. I want to continue to be reliable in that area and so the brighter default Gamma built into Snow Leopard seems to complicate things if I ever want to move up from Tiger to Snow Leopard.
I have two 17" Apple CRT displays that cannot adjust into calibration range when I'm booted in Snow Leopard. These CRT displays can only manually adjust in range for calibration under Tiger or Leopard. It sounds like if I purchase an IPS based LCD monitor, made by Apple, Dell, or other brands, I will probably be able to manually adjust the display for Gamma 1.8, under Snow Leopard.
I was posing this question about using Gamma 2.2 because if I could color correct for pre press with the 2.2 setting, I could continue to use my old Apple 17" CRT displays and also any web content I create will preview closer in color, on PCs as they will on my Mac. Maybe my review PDFs will view with similar color on my customers PCs if I work with a 2.2 Gamma setting and instead of 1.8. For now I know I will keep my printers happy if I continue to work with a monitor that has a 1.8 Gamma setting and a 6500 color temperature setting. If that must continue to be the standard for pre press, then I will need to get an IPS based LCD monitor that will allow me to adjust in the 1.8 Gamma range while booted in Snow Leopard.

I have a color management problem. I have OS X v 10.5, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, and an Epson Stylus Photo R800. I want to print images I have scanned on a Epson Perfection 1660 Photo and corrected in Photoshop and get the colors accurate.

i have a color management problem. I have OS X v 10.5, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, and an Epson Stylus Photo R800. I want to print images I have scanned on a Epson Perfection 1660 Photo and corrected in Photoshop and get the colors accurate.

I used the ColorSync utility to verify, and it came back with this report:
/Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/PrintingModule/SPR800_Core.plugin/Contents /Resources/ICCProfiles/SPR800 Standard.icc
   Tag 'dmnd': Tag size is not correct.
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended/CoatedFOGRA27.icc
   Tag 'desc': Tag size is not correct.
/Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/ICCProfiles/Standard.profiles/Contents/Res ources/Epson IJ Printer.icc
   Tag 'dmnd': Tag size is not correct.
/Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/PrintingModule/SPR800_Core.plugin/Contents /Resources/
I did not know what to do next. At the bottom of the window it said to go to www.apple.com/colorsync to find a tutorial. I got a message saying that link does not work. Tried to find the tutorial by searching at apple.com, but could not seem to locate it. Does anyone know what the report above means and what I should do about it?
Also, how to find that tutorial?
Re Using RGB all the way through, When I print from Photoshop Elements, I select Adobe RGB, Photoshop Manages under "Color Handling", Relative Colometric under "Intent" and "ColorSync" i the Epson printer box. Do you mean to do something different in this sequence?

PSE 8: any color correction controls like RGB as in Photoshop?

I used to have Photoshop 7 and often used the RGB controls to make color corrections.
Now I have Elements 8 and I miss having RGB controls.
Is there a way in PSE 8 I can simply adjust R, G, and B individually like I've been used to?
If not, what is the closest substitute in PSE 8?

There are no channel specific correction available but host of other things you can try are:
Under Enhance Menu you have all those Auto operations to correct all automatically.
Apart from this there are Enhance->Adjust Color and under Adjust Lighting.
You can also try Adjustment layer under Layer->New Adjustment layer after creating a layer or duplicating your original one and check if it helps
Thanks,
Garry

Photoshop Color correction and Special color Effects

Can anybody pls tell me , how they create color corrections in movies like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. and all the other special color themes they create different images...
I use photoshop a lot but m a amateur to color correction thing .

There are many applications, that can do CC (Color Correction, often referred to as Color Grading, or sometimes just Grading). Premiere Pro has many CC Effects, and these should be done on calibrated NTSC, or PAL, monitors, and not on the computer's monitors. One reason for this is that Premiere is not a Color Managed environment.
Adobe After Effects also has many (actually quite a few more) CC Effects, and is often used for this purpose, even if one is not using it for its normal operation - compositing.
Along with those, there are many 3rd party CC plug-ins, like Red Giant's Colorista.
Once one gets past indie films, Hollywood would use workstations designed specifically for CC, with software not commonly available to the vast majority of the public. Again, the work will be done on constantly calibrated monitors, and by skilled technicians, who do nothing else, all day long. A good starting point would be the Black Magic Da Vinci system, but this really only gets one's foot in the door.
To get a handle on CC for Video, I recommend The Arit and Technique of Digital Color Correction, Hullfish.
Color Correction in Video is a subject, where popluar books will fill a large library.
Good luck,
Hunt

Color correcting in Premiere or Photoshop?

I'm new to Premiere and want to color correct some footage. I'm also new to color correcting. Am I better off learning to color correct my footage in Premiere or should I bring it into Photoshop to do it there?
Thanks.

A dedicated color correction app is on its way, maybe CS6. However, we find using the fast color corrector and the three way color corrector in PP quite effective for the basic primary/secondary color correction we do. Gotta watch your scopes though (waveform/vectorscope at the very least). Creative Cow has some tutorials on basic color correction. Here's one, but you'll have to dig around for the others by Andrew Devis. Again, don't do any color correction without checking your scopes.
http://library.creativecow.net/devis_andrew/Color-Correction-2_Premiere-Pro/1
http://library.creativecow.net/devis_andrew/Color-Correction-4_Secondary-Colour-Correction /1

Photoshop Color Correction

I'm trying to edit 2 pictures, but because of the colors I'm having trouble correcting the color.
My first problem is a picture of a room I'm using for a real estate listing. The rooms walls are a light taupe color, the floors are an off white. When I take the picture, the floors and walls look almost the same shade, so when I try to darken or lighten the walls, I have difficulties.
Second, I have a door that has a black pattern on it. For the picture I'm trying to make the entire door look white and hide the huge black pattern. The trouble is, anytime I try to change the color of black, it won't change at all, not even lighten.
Can anyone help me or point me in the right direction. I've messed most of the color ocrrecting features of photshop and I still can't fix the problem. I've even watched 4 hour videos on color correcting :(

There are many applications, that can do CC (Color Correction, often referred to as Color Grading, or sometimes just Grading). Premiere Pro has many CC Effects, and these should be done on calibrated NTSC, or PAL, monitors, and not on the computer's monitors. One reason for this is that Premiere is not a Color Managed environment.
Adobe After Effects also has many (actually quite a few more) CC Effects, and is often used for this purpose, even if one is not using it for its normal operation - compositing.
Along with those, there are many 3rd party CC plug-ins, like Red Giant's Colorista.
Once one gets past indie films, Hollywood would use workstations designed specifically for CC, with software not commonly available to the vast majority of the public. Again, the work will be done on constantly calibrated monitors, and by skilled technicians, who do nothing else, all day long. A good starting point would be the Black Magic Da Vinci system, but this really only gets one's foot in the door.
To get a handle on CC for Video, I recommend The Arit and Technique of Digital Color Correction, Hullfish.
Color Correction in Video is a subject, where popluar books will fill a large library.
Good luck,
Hunt

Camera Raw 5.5 VS Adobe Lightroom (color correction)

Hi, does somebody know if discarding the advantage of making layers of Photoshop, is the Adobe Lightroom color correction controls superiors to the CameraRaw PS Interface correction controls ??? I mean for color correction purposes is Adobe Lightroom better tan PS's camera raw interface ???? because for me both controls seem to be pretty much the same thing, does anyone know something about it ??
Thank you in advance !

RicardoAngelo wrote:
I mean for color correction purposes is Adobe Lightroom better tan PS's camera raw interface ???? because for me both controls seem to be pretty much the same thing, does anyone know something about it ??
Both Camera Raw (most recent version) and Lightroom (most recent version) share the EXACT same processing pipeline...however, there are subtle differences in usability. For example, ACR 5.6 has a Point Curves Editor...Lightroom doesn't. Lightroom has a powerful capability to control output size and resolution which Camera Raw doesn't have...
Bottom line is they are two horses of a different color but each is capable of performing the same tricks...so use whichever app allows you o accomplish what you need to do in the shortest and easiest process...

Color problems in photoshop cs5 and bridge

Recently, whenever I open images in photoshop or view them in Bridge, they look desaturated. In Bridge, they load normal at first but after a couple of seconds, they become desaturated and I can't figure out what the problem is. I have all of the same color management settings as before, the only difference on my computer since the colors stopped working was that my computer installed windows updates. The images look fine when viewing them in the Windows viewer, and in other programs like ACDSee, etc. It only looks like this in Adobe programs. I checked in Bridge under Creative Suite color settings, and it is under North America General Purpose 2. In Photoshop, I checked color settings, and all of them are marked as convert to working rgb, cmyk, etc. Any suggestions?

The monitor color profile tells Photoshop and the other color managed programs how your monitor displays colors. Color profile files are installed by putting them in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color. Then to assign or confirm a color profile for your monitor, you use the Color Management control panel. Under the Devices tab when 'Use my settings for this device" is checked, the color profile currently in used is the one which name ends with (default). For example 'Dell U2410 color Profile, D650 (default)'.
You can download the color profile for you monitor from here http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?releaseid=R279694&formatcnt=0&libi d=0&fileid=413637
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?releaseid=R279694&formatcnt=0&libi d=0&fileid=413637
it downloads a .exe file which is simply a decompressor like .zip files. Run it, and in the folder you will find a file with the name DELL-U2410.icm - his is your monitor color profile from Dell. However most likely Windows has already installed it for you.
Now, given your situation, you may have these eventual problems.
First problem.
Your monitor is a wide gamut monitor 102% of NTSC and Windows defaults at sRGB which is about 70% fo NTSC. NTSC is a color space representing the visible spectrum and is used in monitor specs for measuring the gamut.
Assuming that for some time you didn't use a color profile which more closely represents your monitor, Photoshop was displaying images on your wide gamut monitor using the default sRGB color profile which represent standard gamut sRGB monitors and this is very different from yours. Said in other words you were seeing one thing on your monitor while Photoshop was assuming it is another thing. This becomes a problem when you convert from one color space to another and display or reproduce the image on other devices, and in your case when monitor profile is changed to a very different one. To fix this you have to assign your correct monitor profile to the images that were created with the wrong profile and then convert to a common color space like sRGB, AdobeRGB, etc. Assign and Convert to profiles are in the Edit menu.
Second problem.
The color profile from Dell may not be representing correctly how your monitor displays colors. Dell creates a profile that is not measured to your particular unit but for what they assume is an average representation of the monitor's model. Using it, you depend entirely on luck. I have u2711 and I was very unlucky. If you are curious you can study my case which may be also very educational for you and will be able to see clearly the difference between the colors of my monitor and those the Dell color profile represents. Follow the same instructions above for downloading the color profile for your monitor but download the one for u2711 from here
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?releaseid=R247058&formatcnt=1&libi d=0&fileid=365277
then go to that web site from your link http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm and download my color profile that I'm sharing there. It is 'Dell U2711 Spyder 3 + Color Eyes DP User' once you have the color profiles files on you computer, go to this site http://www.iccview.de/content/view/3/7/lang,en/ , upload my monitor profile and the one from Dell and compare. That web site will give a 3D plot of two color spaces in a 3D viewer that you can navigate to see it from all sides (using the Ctrl, Shift navigates faster). The difference that you see made it impossible to create even simple images for the web using Photoshop. I convert from AdobeRGB to sRGB and when Photshop assumes that my monitor displays colors the way they are described in the Dell's profile, all detail in the shadows is eliminated and my images look like crap. I even got better results from creating a profile using this free software http://www.calibrize.com/ it uses the so call eyeometer relying on your eyes for feedback and although the colors were noticeably off, at least the shadow detail was preserved.
Hope that helps

Color Correction for Web

This is sort of a generic post questions. I am working on a project for the web. My final output will be to Digibeta. How do others approached color correcting in this situation? Being the computer monitors generally have such different characteristics than a traditional TV. In the past I correct as if I was going to air but this sometimes makes the online videos over saturated and contrasty. I realize there is really no web standard yet but wonder if anyone out there does a lot of web stuff that has any tips.

sRGB is the recommended color space for internet application.< </div>
You'd need to provide some documentation to support that statement.
sRGB is not necessarily meaningful beyond photographic applications. sRGB was designed to roughly reproduce color regardless of local profiling. The sRGB standard was created in 1996 to, among other things, create a smaller number of colors to increase the likelihood of correct reproduction in printing photographs, The mere presence of Microsoft on the list of supporting companies is reason enough to be skeptical.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleI d=67719
When an RGB image from a high-end scanner or other device is imported into an SRGB environment, however, some color information is lost. What SRGB offers is a lowest-common-denominator view of images in business applications and on Web sites.< </div>
This from the wiki:
As the recommended color space for the Internet, sRGB should be used for editing and saving all images intended for publication to the WWW. Images intended for professional printing via a fully color-managed workflow, e.g., prepress output sometimes use another color space such as Adobe RGB (1998), which allows for a wider gamut.
Images intended for the Internet and created in one of the other color spaces may be converted to sRGB when editing, using a suitable editing program, e.g., Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop; ideally, the original non-sRGB file should be saved and the conversion to sRGB done on a copy, as some loss of image information occurs when converting to another color space.
Due to the standardization of sRGB on the Internet, on computers, and on printers, many low- to medium-end consumer digital cameras and scanners use sRGB as the default (or only available) working color space. Used in conjunction with an inkjet printer, an sRGB image produces what is often regarded as satisfactory for home use. However, consumer-level camera LCDs are typically uncalibrated, meaning that even though the image is being labelled as sRGB, one can't conclude that the image is color-accurate on the LCD.
The two dominant programming interfaces for 3D graphics, OpenGL and Direct3D, have both incorporated sRGB. OpenGL 2.1 incorporates sRGB textures first introduced by the EXTtexturesRGB extension. OpenGL's EXTframebuffersRGB extensionsupports rendering into framebuffers assuming either a linear or sRGB color space. DirectX 9 supports sRGB textures and rendering into sRGB surfaces using Direct3D.<
bogiesan

Secondary Color Correction layer not working in .look file

I needed to edit an image for continuity reasons so I exported a .dpx frame from that section of my premiere pro project and worked on it in speedgrade. In the workflow I have set for myself, it is best to apply the look in after effects using the "apply color lut" function. Unfortunately, the secondary color correction layer does not apply, but other layers such as primary will.

Hi ACD,
After Effects and Photoshop CS6 take .Looks via the LUT engine. That indeed allows for using primaries with low mid high differentiation and should yield really good results.
Secondaries can be expressed in a LUT as well, but I would typically not recommend using them when you want to integrate .Looks with your After Effects workflow. Here's why:
- a LUT is never as precise as you'd want it to be for something as complex as secondary color grading - a LUT is always based on interpolation (as opposed to applying the effect in SpeedGrade - there it's all native, no interpolation at all)
- For a good key you would typically use the denoise and the blur function in the secondaries. Both (by nature) don't translate at all into a LUT, so you'd have to give up using these 2 important tools
- For a lot of work you'd want the LUT to be accompanied by a mask. That's something that also can't be described in a LUT.
Think of the LUT support for .Looks you created in SpeedGrade more as a really helpful tool for matching your comps to an overall look you design, not necessarily as the tool to apply a final grade.
Hope this is helpful.
Pat

Secondary Color Correction End Softness

Here is a little something that has driven me insane across all versions (sans 8.1 which doesn't work on my machine)...
Lets say you are using secondary color correction to mask out the sky above a mountain range - you know, like every single video tutorial on the subject does - so you get it dialed in as much as you can until you are left with that nasty pixel fakey line along where the heavens meet the earth which screams "hey look everyone this guy is faking the sky color here". But you don't admit defeat yet and you of course go for that trusty almost magical "End Softness" slider. You drag it a bit and see that it indeed does blend/feather/fix your SCC mask up quite nicely except one glaring problem. The End Softness adjustment has also feathered in the very far left/right outside edges of your clip/frame as well - rendering the usefulness of the secondary color correction ... well... completely non-useful.
If it helps to clarify what I mean, the unwanted side effect I am describing also happens when you use Gaussian blur (premiere, photoshop, etc) but is remedied when you simply check the little "Repeat Edge Pixels" box.
Anyone else ever have their secondary color correction attempts utterly deflated by this occurrence?

I would imagine it is something to do with how softness or blurring samples surrounding pixels. When you reach the edge of the frame the edge pixels won't haven't neighbours all the way round for the effect to look at. As you said it is like the gaussian blur. Why there is no 'Repeat Edge Pixels' option, I don't know. I think you are possibly wasting your time asking the why on these forums. As long as you can get to the how, then be happy you achieve the desired outcome you are after

? about image resolution/color correction when apple prints photo book

My first time making a photo book. I color correct and sharpen all of my images in Adobe Lightroom 2 first. Then I save the jpegs and import into iPhoto to make a book. Is there an option for turning off auto color correction when the file is uploaded to apple for printing? Is there an accurate way to tell how the photos will print on the specific paper they use? Also, what print resolution should the photos be set to? Is 180 dpi enough? Thanks in advance.

first read the Apple pages - http://www.apple.com/support/photoservices/preparation_tips/ - and all of its links
Second - I suspect you will be disappointed. Based on reports on these forums almost everyone who uses iPhoto exclusively to preprocess photos is extremely happy with the results. very often people you over process their photos using a third party program (including Lightroom, Photoshop, etc) are unhappy because the printing process is optimized for point and shoot cameras and iPhoto processing - it is NOT a professional desktop book process
There are no options re color correction - it is built in again aimed at sRGB, point and shoot cameras and iPhoto processing
Plus there have been reported incompatibilities between iPhoto and Lightroom
The print resolution is what it is - if it will be less than 180 dpi you will get a waarning - it can be greater
The papers they print on are specified here - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3412
LN

Color Correcting in Photoshop

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