I took photography in high school and love to play around with my camera, but my photography skills need a bit of help. Maybe I need to invest in some photography classes or maybe I could use some photography equipment. Nevertheless, I enjoy taking photos and rely on my Photoshop skills to make up for my shortcomings whenever I can.

I took this photo late at night in a room with dark walls and dim lighting. I tried other versions with my flash, but do not always like the effect the flash creates. Since she was very tired and holding still, I realized I could use a slow shutter speed instead of the flash.

As you can see, her fur came out very yellow. However, she is not a yellow lab, she is a Llewellyn Setter. No sweat, all I had to do was take out the yellow. Unfortunately, I went about the task on my home computer, which does not have a color accurate monitor. That is an added challenge, but not an impossible task to get it right…or close to right. Here is what I came up with:

Isn’t she cute? She definitely looks better white. I also took out the gray blanket that was peaking up behind her. I wondered about editing out the wall trim. I will likely do that later but left it in to help illustrate the change in color.

How I Did It

For those of you who know Photoshop hopefully this summary will help you out.

Step 1: Find the darkest, lightest and gray midtone of your image. This part is the trickiest if your monitor is not color corrected like mine. I used the Threshold Adjustment Level slider to help me find all three. By moving the slider all the way to the left and then back until you see a black spot, you will find the darkest point. Mark that spot. Then to find the lightest point move the slider to the right and back a little until you see a white spot. Mark that point as well. Then click cancel because you do not actually need the adjustment layer. Next, add a layer, fill it with 50% gray and then select difference in the Layers palette. Now you can treat finding the midtone the same way as finding the darkest point. When you finish marking your three spots, delete your 50% gray layer.

Step 2: Open the Curves dialog, choose the black Eyedropper tool and click on the dark point you found in step one. Next click on the white highlight Eyedropper and click on the whitest point. Finally, do the same with the gray midtone Eyedropper. If you have a photo like mine, you will likely be amazed at how much closer to true color that will get you.

Step 3: Even after going through steps one and two, her fur was still slightly yellow. At that point, I realized I could still pull a little more yellow out without compromising the detail. I did this by choosing yellow in the Selective Color palette and moving the yellow slider to the left until I liked the way it looked.

There you have it!

There are many ways to go about color correcting. This is not the only method I use, but I felt it was good for my particular situation. Do you have your favorite way of color correcting? Would you have done this differently?

This entry is archived under Photography and you can keep updated on the conversation by subscribing to the comments RSS feed.

You might also be interested in reading the following blog entries:

• barrettcreates.com Gets a New Look
• What’s Your Favorite Color?
• Adding Gold To Your Logo, YIKES!
• Pretty Permalinks
• Defending Your Artwork