Remove Color Cast

[Wendi Karen]

I am trying to automatically remove a color cast from a photo.

I have followed the instructions in Adobe Help but nothing seems to be happening. I'm not sure where I should be clicking to activate the 'tool'. I know to click on something black or white in my photo but nothing happens when I do.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Wendi

[TonyW]

Only thing I can think of is that you don't have a check mark in the preview box. You won't see anything unless you do. But if you do and click around in the image you should be seeing a change in the colours.

Tony

[ridon127]

I am having the same problem. I just upgraded to 5 so I thought it was me. I went back to see if the preview was checked so that isn't the problem.

Thanks
Donna

[GaryK]

I remember I had problems with that tool when I first got 5.

I was closing the dialogue box before clicking on the neutral area of the photo. :) I was treating it as an instruction box, telling what I was supposed to do after I hit OK.
Anybody else doing this.:D

[TonyW]

Gary - that's a good thought. The way they have that dialogue box set up I could see why it would be tempting to click the OK box before trying to click on the image and then it won't work.

Tony

[Juergen D]

Wendi,
I'm not trying to be facetious, but maybe there is no color cast. Can you post the picture on Pixentral (http://www.pixentral.com/), so we can compare notes?

Juergen

[ridon127]

Thanks Gary. That took care of the problem.

Donna

[GaryK]

Donna

Glad you got it.:)

I can't tell you how long I messed with that before I figured it out.:D

[ridon127]

The instructions aren't very clear..That is one reason I went ahead and upgraded because I thought something was wrong with PS3. I needed to upgrade anyway,...This was just a good excuse.
Donna

[Wendi Karen]

Thanks everyone for all your help.

Juergen, you were right, pse did not think there was a color cast in the photo I was trying to correct. I opened a different photo and did what was suggested (leaving the dialogue box open) and pse did change the photo. It did not correct the color correctly (in my opinion) but it did change it.

Thanks again everyone!!

Wendi

[CalamityJanet]

Hi Wendi,

The tool doesn't usually get it right on the first click. Keep clicking around on the image until you get the results you want and then click OK. I sometimes have to click on quite a few areas to get the look I want, but it eventually works.

[Daviskw]

Hi Wendi

That tool works miracles at times…then other times makes things worse. It is always worth a try and even if it does not work completely it will often give you a better starting point for color correction.
The reason it does not always work is because a good portion of the time there is more than one color caste in your photo. If there is one caste…say a yellow… then clicking on any color that you know should be neutral….white, black…gray will do wonders. The point that is clicked is assumed to be neutral… otherwise have equal values of red green and blue. The tool will change the existing values by adding or subtracting color as need to make them equal. These colors are added throughout your picture effectively removing the caste everywhere. Just in case you don’t know… white black and all shades of gray have equal amounts of red green and blue. Black has no color so it is Red 0..Green 0..Blue 0… White is all color Red 255...Green 255...Blue 255. A gray can be anything in between as long as the values are equal.
The problem arises when, as an example, you have a yellow caste in the highlights and maybe a blue caste in the shadows. If you click on the highlight... blue will be added to the yellow to neutralize it. The trouble is it also adds blue to the already blue caste in the shadows making it worse.
The tool is useful but no substitute manual color correction.

Butch