Photoshop Tip: Quick Method to Color Correct Scanned Art and Photographs

Often photos and scanned art needs the color corrected in Photoshop because the lighting conditions for the photos or the setup parameters in the scanner software is not quite right. Correcting the colors can be time consuming and frustrating when adjusting the colors with Photoshop's curve, level, or hue/saturation options. Digital photographer expert, Eddie Tapp, shows in his article "90% Method of color correction basics" how to correct colors simply, fast, and almost full proof by using the info palette and eyedropper tool in Photoshop. I'm not going to repeat the simple steps that Eddie Tapp shows in his pdf article because he does an excellent job. However, I do have a few comments.

1. This method depends on having white and black in the image so if it does not you will need to use another method to correct colors. Hint: If the art you want to scan does not have black and white in it, you can add a black and white swatch to the border or adjacent to the image before you scan it. You can use them to correct the colors and later removed them while in Photoshop.

2. To open the Info window mentioned in the article, go to the Photoshop Windowpulldown menu and select Info or press F8 if the F keys are active on your keyboard.

3. You need to hold down the shift key (at least in the Photoshop CS3 version) when you use the eyedropper to lock in the color information in the Info window.

This is a photo that I took of my portfolio under poor lighting conditions while exhibiting at the January 2010 Licensing and Design section Atlanta Gift Show.

This shows the photo after I made the color correction using Eddie Tapp's "90% Method." It literally took less than one minute to do.

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