Color Correction

This frame allows to adjust and finetune the color appearance of the picture. You can also achieve very surprising or proffessional effects with a combination of the following 5 tabs:

Auto Colors

The auto tab applies 3 automatic adjustments in a single step. The automatic corrections applied are:

·

Stretch: an automatic histogram stretch for each channel of the histogram

·

Color Balance: automatically detects color casts and balances the colors accordingly

·

Saturation: adjusts the level of saturation of the colors

You can regulate the amount of Auto Colors to be applied on the picture by using the slider.

Example of Auto-colors

Before After

Balance

In this tab you can specify for each of the Ranges Gamma, Shadows, Midtones, Hilights and All the balance between complementary colors, that are: Red-Cyan, Green-Magenta, Blue-Yellow. The tool lets you precisely change the color of your pictures, without loosing their original appearance and details.

You can visualize the correction curves applied by looking at the Histogram Display. Press the Suggest Button for balancing colors automatically.

Example of Color Balance

Before After

Color Cast

To remove a color cast:

1)

Select the color picker tool

2)

Click on a point in the picture that you know should be of neutral color (for example white or gray)

3)

The color cast in the whole photograph will be removed assuming that the selected source color must be neutralized

4)

You can regulate the amount of Cast Removal to be applied on the picture by using the slider

If you are unsure which source color to choose, try the Suggest Button.

Example of Color Cast removal

In this example, the neutral point was chosen in the background. As you see in the result, the blue color stain was removed in the whole image, including the face of the boy.

Before After

Hue, Saturation & Lightness (HSL)

The Hue is a gradient change of color. In the color spectrum, you can distinguish between Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, Blues and Magentas gradations.

The Saturation refers to the vividness of a color. A fully saturated color is very pure and deep; as you reduce the saturation, the colors become progressively more washed out until - at zero saturation - they are just shades of gray.

The Lightness is the amount of white of the colors.

1)

First select the color range you want to adjust, by using the color bar or the color range menu. You can also select a color range through the color picker tool and by clicking on the picture.

2)

Change the hue shift slider to adjust the color gradation, the saturation slider to adjust the vividness and the lightness slider to add or subtract white to the colors.

Example of HSL

In this example, a dramatic effect was achieved by applying a hue shift of yellow to red.

Before After

Levels Tab

See the Histogram & Curves topic for more information.


Important

·

Remember, that correction tools permanently change the appearance of a photograph, and that some of the original information of the picture may be lost. While algorithms in CodedColor are not as aggressive as in many competing programs, always make sure that it's not your monitor that is causing the apparent flaw. That way, you would actually ruin an image because of a badly adjusted monitor. If in doubt, it's a good habit to keep your original pictures in a backup folder.

·

When selecting parts of the image using the selection tools, all brushes and correction dialogs only apply to these selections. Selections can also have a feather, reducing the effect of the brush or correction close to the selection borders.