Maybe before you read on though, it might be a good time for a review based on Lesson #10.

We mentioned that viewing your printed image in the correct light is critical to understand if it is in fact the right color. And if the print is off, why didn't we see it on the monitor before we printed it? All of this points toward understanding the science of color calibration and ways in which you can control it. And if you think that is a mouthful, wait until you see how much it's going to cost you to get calibrated...

Ok, I don't want to scare you off, and I promise to keep this on the basic side of the fence. So here's the simple form:

1. Monitor color (and all color of luminescence for that matter), is calibrated by the Kelvin color temperature scale. Normal monitor brightness is around 6500K or Kelvin. The higher the number Kelvin, the more blue the image is. The lower the brightness or Kelvin temperature, the more yellow the image is.
   
   
2. Because monitor color affects our color judgment, it will also affect out printed piece. And if our printer is not color controlled with appropriate settings to achieve a known good and calculated color print, we are just wishing for a good print.
   
   
3. And if we establish color by color temperature, shouldn't we know that when we are taking the picture and not fixing it later?

Let's go back to the days of film (remember what that is?) to help establish what we are talking about here and maybe also help us get to the root of the lesson.

We use the mid-tones of the Levels menu to adjust the overall brightness, then the drop down to the Red Channel to adjust the balance between Red and Green. Then finally, drop down again to the Blue Channel to adjust out some of the Yellow and bring in Blue.

Again, if you recall trying this exercise in Lesson #10, these adjustments to get better color balance will not be new info. And, to get the best image right away, always set your camera to the correct White Balance setting before you shoot... you will avoid the time it takes to apply these corrections.

I hope these lessons have helped you get ahead in Adobe Photoshop. The next series will be available soon so check back with us... happy shooting!

I once shot a whole roll of slide film at an important event thinking it was Tungsten (indoor) slide film. After processing, my daylight-balanced film shot indoors yielded some pretty hideous flesh tones... and this was way before the days of digital color correction.

So, as you can see from the examples of film to the right, there were intended uses and reasons to buy the right one. There must be something to know about the difference between indoor and outdoor lighting then.

Actually, you might have a setting on your digital camera that helps your camera's meter think more correctly. If you look at the menu settings under Exposure or White Balance, you might see a list of types of light sources. Of course there is Automatic, but you might also see Tungsten, Fluorescent, Cloudy or Shadow lighting scenarios. This will depend on the sophistication of your camera, and there might only be icons displaying the type of light source. The important thing to understand is that they all produce different shades of light on your subject area, affecting color.

Alright, now that we're past that, let's look at an example of an image that used too much indoor light to establish its exposure and did not color correct for it under the Automatic White Balance setting in my camera's menu.

As you can tell, there is a sufficient amount of warmth (yellow) in the image, but what if I don't want it that warm? What do I do the change it? Levels, of course! With almost identical settings as the nighttime color correction we used in Lesson #10, the same attributes can be applied for indoor color adjustment.