Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Removing Unwanted Color

It's not uncommon for an otherwise good photo to have a color cast—that is, to have all its tonal values shifted so it's too blue, like Figure 7-14, or too orange.

Figure 7-14. Left: You may wind up with photos like this every once in a while if you forget to change your camera's white balance—a special setting for the type of lighting conditions you're shooting in (common settings are daylight, fluorescent, and so on). This is an outdoor photo taken with the camera set for tungsten indoor lighting. Right: Elements fixes that wicked color cast in a jiffy. The photo still needs other adjustments, but the color is back in the right ballpark.

Elements gives you several ways to correct color-cast problems:

• Auto Color Correction doesn't give you any control over the changes, but it often does a good job. To use it, go to Enhance → Auto Color Correction or press Ctrl+Shift+B.

• The Raw Converter may be the easiest way to fix problems, though it works only on Raw, JPEG, and TIFF files. Just run your photo through the Raw converter (Using the Raw Converter), and adjust its white balance there.

• Levels gives you the finest control of all. You can often eliminate a color cast by adjusting the individual color channels (as explained in the previous section) till the extra color is gone. The drawbacks are that Levels can be very fiddly for this sort of work; sometimes this method ...