Photoshop Elements 12 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 2: Correcting Lighting, Color, and Clarity

In This Chapter

Navigating the Histogram panel

Adjusting lighting, color, and clarity

Working with the Smart Brush tools

If you’ve tried the quick automatic fixes on your photos but they didn’t correct the photos to your satisfaction, this chapter should be of some help. Fortunately, Elements offers multiple ways and multiple levels of correcting and enhancing your images. If an auto-fix doesn’t work, elevate to a manual fix. Chances are good that if you can’t find the tools to correct and repair your images in Elements, those images are probably beyond salvaging.

Correcting Your Images the Logical Way

Using this chapter and the information provided in Chapter 1 of this minibook as your jumping-off points, try to employ some kind of logical workflow when you tackle the correction and repair of your images. Personally, we’re partial to the following series of steps:

1. Crop, straighten, and resize your images, if necessary.

2. When you have the images in their proper physical state, correct the lighting and establish good tonal ...