Have you ever had an image with a really annoying color cast and none
of the auto
methods to correct it built into Paint Shop Pro worked ...
How frustrating is that?
Fortunately there are some non-automatic adjustments in Paint Shop Pro
that will do
the job nicely.
The adjustments have to made manually which
are generally better than auto adjustments anyway.
This method to eliminate both a color cast and to improve overall color
is adapted from a Photoshop technique that is quick, easy and very
effective.
The technique uses an Average Blur which may not seem to have
much to do with a color cast - but it does.
The
Technique
This is a simple four step process (one additional step may be
necessary) that starts simply enough ...
Step One
Duplicate the Background Layer.
Step Two
Go to Adjust >
Blur > Average. When the dialogue comes
up go to Settings:
and select Blur High.
This will cause the image to become blurry.
Step Three
Change the Blend Mode
of the Copy of Background to Color
(Legacy) and then go to Image
> Negative Image.
This will make the image look really weird but have faith -
it will all work out.
This is the hard stuff over. Now for the adjusting ...
Step Four
Lower the Opacity
of the Background Copy
layer and watch the change in the image. As you get down
around 35% to 50% Opacity the color will start to look normal (without
the color change when the image was changed to negative and
without the
original color cast).
Here is the layers palette at this point ...
When you are happy with the new color - stop - you are done!
The color cast is gone ...
Isn't that neat?
A Site Visitor's Suggestion
Richard
- firstly may I thank you very much for your site, which I stumbled
upon
yesterday during a routine google. Wow!
I am a Paint Shop (X3) user and have a basic Wacom tablet - though that
is incidental to what I was looking for. I saw your video on colour
correction (amongst others) and hey, what a simple technique thank you
SO MUCH.
I was experimenting with this as I don't like just being given a recipe
- it can be made simpler. There is no need for the initial blurring of
the copy as far as I can see. just go straight into setting the blend
mode and making it negative. (BTW as well as colour legacy, you can
also use colour, hue and hue legacy, though the two legacy blends do
seem to provide the best result).
I did experiment with blurring, and used maximum radius Gaussian blur
just to see - it appeared to make no difference to the end result.
Thank you once again.
Simon - London
With my image there is a problem, however and there may be one with
yours as well. The darn thing is kind of flat and lifeless.
It needs some additional modification.
Additional
Refinements
Levels
Adjustment
The best way to improve the brightness in this image is with a Levels
Adjustment Layer above the Background copy layer.
The normal method to adjust Levels is to move the Shadows (left slider)
and/or Highlights (right slider) up to the edges of the Histogram in
the dialogue.
With this image moving the Shadow slider up to the Histogram made the
image much too dark and moving the Highlight slider didn't make much
difference at all.
Hmmm - if I can't move the left slider and I can't move the right
slider then what can I do - ahh - how about moving the Mid-tones slider
(the middle one) - that did the trick.
A Note: when the Levels dialogue opened the mid-pint was at
level 128 and this is middle gray which is the holy grail of an image.
By moving the mid-point to 98 middle gray has been changed to a new
position and all the rest of the brightness levels adjust themselves
accordingly.
The image is much brighter now but still lacks the all important
contrast.
Now its time to add a Curves Adjustment layer.
Curves
Adjustment
This is the Curves dialogue box for this image.
I placed two control points on the curve - one in the Shadow
area (bottom left) and one in the Highlight area (top right).
The Shadow slider did not need much adjustment - it is just below the
line. If it went any further then the Shadows would be way
too dark.
The Highlight slider was moved up much further while watching the image
to make sure the contrast is good.
Here is the image after the Curves Adjustment Layer was applied.
This is a big improvement from the color cast in the original image,
don't you think?
What this procedure shows is that one technique, no matter how good, is
generally not enough to produce a really good image.
If you are having any problems understanding Curves, you can click here
to review this very useful adjustment.
And that is how to remove a color cast and then tune up the image.
Negative Image
