Fixing Your Photos; About Fixing Your Photos - Adobe PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2 User Manual

Chapter 4: Fixing Your Photos
ou can fix photos in Adobe Photoshop
Y
Elements by using the retouching, editing,
and color adjusting features. You can
correct an entire image, or portions of an image.
About fixing your photos
You may need to correct the color and tone of an
image for several reasons. The original photo-
graph may have a color cast caused by the film,
lighting, or aging. Or the scan may have been
imperfect—scanners can introduce color casts or
artifacts. Or the colors in your original art may be
out of printable range.
You can quickly fix simple image problems by
using automated or simple correction features in
Photoshop Elements. For example, you can easily
fix underexposed photos or subtle color casts with
an auto correction command or with a few simple
visual adjustments. For more information, see
"Quickly fixing your photos" on page 58 and
"Using the Color Variations command" on
page 66.
If you need more precise controls for adjusting a
photo's color, highlights, and shadows, you can use
more advanced features, including the Levels
command. For more information, see "Adjusting
the range of dark and light tones in an image" on
page 62.
For more information, see "Checking scan
quality and tonal range" in online Help.
To remove blemishes, such as dust and scratches,
you can use filters to quickly repair the damaged
areas. If the blemished areas are more complex,
you can use the clone stamp tool to manually
repair the photo. To fix other common issues,
including red-eye, color-saturation, and exposure
problems, you can use other retouching tools. For
more information, see "Retouching an image" on
page 70.
Workflow for fixing photos
To correct the color balance and tonal range of an
image, complete the following steps:
Use Adobe Gamma to
Calibrate your monitor
calibrate your monitor or the display calibrator
(Mac OSX only). A calibrated monitor ensures
consistent color from other devices such as
printers. (See "Calibrating your monitor" on
page 32.)
Before making any color
View the image at 100%
corrections, view the image at a zoom percentage
of 100%. At that percentage, Photoshop Elements
displays color most accurately.
Check the scan quality and tonal range
the image's histogram to evaluate whether the
image has sufficient detail to produce high-quality
output. The greater the range of values in the
histogram, the greater the detail. Poor scans and
photographs without much detail can be difficult
if not impossible to correct. Too many color
corrections can also result in a loss of pixel values
and too little detail.
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