Adobe Photoshop CS5 Tutorials
Color Correcting Photos / Using the Auto Commands pt. 2
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS5 / Color Correcting Photos / Using the Auto Commands pt. 2)
Alright, let's see how these Auto Commands play out and let's see the effect that they have on our images. You know, Photoshop's Auto Commands are a great place to start with color correction, whether you're a seasoned veteran of color correction inside Photoshop or whether you're just getting started. So what I want you to do is find your Auto Color File. Look for that guy. Again, hopefully he's in the same spot that my guy's in. Mine's in the bottom-left corner. Auto Color is always a great place to start with your Auto Commands. It tends to produce really good results. So make sure you click inside this file's window, the document window there and then head up to your Image Menu and then I'd like you to choose Auto Color from the list of menu items that we have here and what we get is this sort of a result here. You can see there's been an obvious color shift here that looks almost brown, doesn't it? It looks almost like it's, you know, there's some dying vegetation inside this photo here. But that's what the Auto Color Command does. Now, specifically what he does is he takes the lightest point inside our image and shifts it to pure white. In other words, again, it shifts it to that white pointright? That's why we talked about that. It takes the darkest point inside our photo and shifts it to pure black and then it takes the mid-tone, it finds the mid-tone pixel or the mid-tone color value and shifts it to 50 percent. So exactly what happened in our experiment in one of the previous exercises is exactly what's happened inside our Auto Color file but obviously now it's happening inside a photograph instead of a goofy, experimental fileright? So essentially what happens with Auto Color is it makes the highlights lighter, it takes the shadows and makes them darker. That's how it works. OK, next up let's try Auto Tone. So go ahead and find your Auto Tone file. Again, I'll head to the Image Menu and then I'll choose Auto Tone of course and view the results that I get. Now, personally, I really like what Auto Tone has done here to my photo. It looks a lot better than the Auto Color. The greens are greener definitely. There's not a whole lot of other colors inside this image but I'm still kind of getting that washed-out background. Maybe perhaps it's not as bad as it was in the original if I compare back to the original here but my greens are definitely richer. My colors are definitely richer. So, what does Auto Tone do? Well, it does the same thing as Auto Color. It adjusts that white point, that black point and the mid-tone points but it does so on a channel-by channel basis. In other words, Auto Color takes the whole image, Auto Tone does it on a channel-by-channel basis. So it's adjusting the black, white and mid-tone points on each channel. You're going to see an increase in contrast and it may remove or introduce a color cast, so be careful with your Auto Tone. Alright, we've got one more here, Auto Contrast. Go ahead and click on your Auto Contrast Image Window. Once again, back to the Image Menu and this time of course down to Auto Contrast and view your results. Now, I didn't see a whole lot in terms of a change. A bit of change happening here myself with this image. Again what happens is it's going to shift the black point, the white point and the midpoint and it's going to automatically adjust your contrast as well. Unlike the Auto Tone, it does not adjust on a channel-by-channel basis and it does not remove or introduce a color cast. So there you go. That's kind of a run-through of your Auto Commands here inside Photoshop. What you might want to do at this point is perhaps grab one of your own images and try running the Auto Commands on your own files. What I think I'll do here is I'm going to head up to my Application Bar, to my Arrange Menu and I'll choose Consolidate All and sort of a do a comparison here. There's Auto Contrast, there's Auto Color, Auto Tone and View, the original fileright? I think I like the Auto Tone the best, if I kind of cycle through them here. Yup, I think I like the Auto Tone the best, myself anyway. It's all again in the eye of the beholder. But I hope this has at least provided you with a workable example of that whole idea of black point, white point and midpoint and of course introduced you also to Photoshop's Auto Commands.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS5 |
| Author: | Geoff Blake |
| SKU: | 34150 |
| ISBN: | 1-936334-46-1 |
| Release Date: | 2010-08-06 |
| Duration: | 7.5 hrs / 95 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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