237: Thou shall use the right Photoshop tools for color adjustment

Commentary If you feel an image needs some color adjustment, it may well need a bit of tonal adjustment first. Color is directly affected by tonal adjustments because saturation will increase or decrease when darkening or lightening an image, so check Levels first. Don’t bother with Brightness and Contrast as the adjustment isn’t sophisticated enough. Drag the black and white point sliders of the Layers dialog in to meet the ends of the histogram to achieve good tonal balance. A Color Balance adjustment can solve simple color problems but for better results you need to study the workings of the Curves adjustment. It’s not that complicated to get your head around and is arguably the most powerful adjustment tool in the whole kit. Read up about the popular S-Curve approach to color adjustment and you’ll be well on the way to becoming a real pro. Knowledge of the color wheel will help you here, too. Here’s a little side tip for any adjustment procedure. Decide what the worst issue is and deal with that first. It may be all that’s needed. TS