Color Balance

In Photoshop, we have two ways to balance color in our photos.
One way is through the “Color Balance”.
This option can be found under “Image” in the menu bar, choose “Adjustments” in the drop-down menu and click “Color Balance”.
A second way is by means of an adjustment layer.
Just click the button “color balance” in the panel “Adjustments”.
This is the third button in the second row of icons.

Whatever you do does not matter to me, but personally I prefer the second way. This way, I change nothing on the original picture and I can change the adjustments at any time.

I removed the “Mask” part in the adjustment layer, as we have seen in the previous lesson.
If you wish that it does not always add the “Mask Part” automtically to the adjustment layer, you can turn this off by clicking the downward pointing arrow button in the menu bar of the pane (1), and click on the “Add Mask By Default” so that this is unchecked.

By means of the sliders you can adjust the colors Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (2).
This is for the “Shadows”, the “mids” and “High Lights” (3).

It is one way to perform color correction, but to perform a decent color correction, you’re better off with “Variations”.

Variations

A second way is by means of the option “Variations”.

To open the “Variations”, we click “Image” – “Adjustments” – “Variations …” in the menu bar.

The dialog “Variations” gives us a bit more options than the “Color Balance”.
It may not seem so, but it is so. It also seems a bit complicated, but it certainly is not. I will go into more detail in the next lesson.

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