Night and Low-light Photography Photo Workshop

eyedropper tool to pick a spot in your image;

you can then add to that color selection by

using the additive eyedropper (the one with

the plus sign below it). If you add too much

color, you can use the subtractive eyedropper

to remove a color (it is the eyedropper with

the negative sign below it). You can also

adjust the color selected with the Fuzziness

slider. You can see the hue that you have

selected in the color panel right above the

Fuzziness slider, and it is this color that is

affected by the settings in the Replacement

section on the bottom half of the menu. In

that section, you can adjust the hue, satura-

tion, and lightness of the selected color. Just

adjust the color with the sliders, as shown in

Figure 11-13.

    ■   Adjust Color Curves. Curves are one of the

most powerful ways to adjust the colors in

your image, and the Elements interface makes

this feature really easy to use. To start with,

the menu shows you a live before-and-after

window so that any changes you make are

immediately seen and can be compared to the

original. There are two different ways to

adjust the curves, and they can both be used

together to get the exact effect you want. You

can use the style box or you can adjust the

sliders, and with both, you will see the

changes on the graph and on the after image.

I find it is easier to adjust one of the four slid-

ers to get the desired effect. The sliders are

Adjust Highlights, Midtone Brightness,

Midtone Contrast, and Adjust Shadows.

one in the middle represents the middle val-

ues, and the one on the right represents the

highlight values. You can adjust any of these

settings by either moving the arrows or just

entering numerical values into the boxes. You

can also control the output by adjusting the

output levels. Slide the shadow slider to the

right, and the image becomes darker as the

black value is pushed right. Slide the high-

light slider to the left, and the image gets

lighter as the highlight value is pushed left.

The Adjust Color menu gives you eight separate
controls to deal with the color. These menus are:

■   Remove Color Cast. This menu just offers a

different way to set the white balance of the
image. When you pick this menu choice, the
cursor becomes an eyedropper and all you
have to do is pick a part of the image that is
supposed to be black, white, or neutral. This
is a very helpful tool if the white balance tool
doesn’t give you good results.

■   Adjust Hue / Saturation. This menu adjusts

the color (hue) and the saturation of the
entire image.

■   Remove Color. This is a one-click trick to

turn the image black and white. It removes all
the color from the image.

■   Replace Color. This is one of those menus

that seem like magic to me. This tool lets
you adjust a specific color in your image. The
first thing to do is to pick the color you want
to adjust. You do this by using the first