The Image Adjustment Lab is an area within PHOTO-PAINT that allows you to make global changes, correcting the color and tones of most images quickly and easily. Before using the Image Adjustment Lab, it’s best to do any cropping or retouching beforehand.
Also, if you have to mask something, it’s also a good idea to do it beforehand. Since the Image Adjustment Lab will make global corrections to your images, it’s important to mask out the areas you don’t want to color correct. My suggestion is to take only the areas you want to fix and copy those sections as separate Objects (layers).
Characteristic
Some of the Image Adjustment Lab features allow you to:
- See a before and after preview of the section you’re working on.
- Create an automatic adjustment (which is usually correct or close to the correct color balance the first time you use it).
- Set a black and white point.
- Make global corrections like temperature, hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, and midtones.
- NEW: Real-time histogram allows you to edit images with greater precision. The histogram lets you know if highlights or shadows will be clipped, and also shows you if the dynamic range has been stretched too much (which can create a posterized effect). It is recommended that you use the automatic features first. If they don’t give you the result you’re looking for, you can start experimenting with the different sliders.
- Use the Create Snapshot feature to take snapshots of your work in progress. These are displayed below the working image, allowing you to keep track of your settings. If for some reason you don’t like the changes, you can click on a previous snapshot to restore the color balance, or you can access the Click to reset button to start over from the beginning. These functions make it relatively easy to manipulate images, but it’s easy to get caught up in the functions and lose track of what you’re doing. I recommend that you keep a notebook handy when working with images (especially when working on a complex project) and make a note of your settings. These will come in handy when working on a new project with similar issues.
To access the Image Adjustment Lab, go to the main toolbar and click Adjust: Image Adjustment Lab. This opens the Image Adjustment Lab dialog.
the controls
At the top of the dialog are a number of tools that govern the navigation of the dialog.
- These are the rotate tools, the pan tool, the zoom tools (zoom in/out, fit in window (F4), and display the image at normal size), and the preview modes.
- On the right side are the automatic and manual controls that are arranged in an image correction workflow order. Essentially, it starts in the top right corner and works its way down. These sliders (which include numeric input option include: Auto Adjust, Temperature, Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, and Midtones.
- The auto adjust button is usually the only tool you will need. Corrects the lightest and darkest areas and adjusts the tonal range in each channel.
- The Black/White point automatically adjusts the contrast of the image. The black and white eyedroppers also create some tonal neutrality in the image and are not just for setting the black/white points.
- The Temperature slider corrects color casts by “warming” or “cooling” the color casts in the image. This allows you to compensate for lighting problems at the time the picture was taken.
- The Tint slider governs the green and magenta in an image and is the control you would use after the Temperature slider to adjust the image.
- The Saturation slider controls the intensity of the colors. Moving the slider to the right increases the effect, while moving it to the left decreases it.
- The Brightness slider controls the overall brightness or darkness of an image.
- The Contrast slider controls the difference in tone between light and dark areas of an image. Using this control can mute colors or increase image detail.
- The Highlights slider controls the brightness in the lighter areas of the image. Here, you would also use the Midtones and Shadows sliders to adjust the image. Of the following two controls, the Shadows slider allows you to adjust the brightness in the darkest parts of the image, while the Midtones slider controls the brightness in the midtones of an image.
- Directly below these controls are the real-time histogram, the Hints panel, and the Create Snapshot button. As mentioned above, the histogram lets you know if the highlights or shadows will be clipped, and also shows you if the dynamic range has been stretched too much (which can create a posterized effect).
- The Tips panel gives you information about each slider and gives you information on how to use them. To see the corresponding hint for a given slider, hover your mouse over the slider and the information will appear.
- The Create Snapshot button is shown below. This is used to preserve the details of the changes you make as you go through the process of correcting an image. Each snapshot contains the details of your changes. Clicking Create Snapshot creates a thumbnail that starts at the bottom left of your images. These allow you to go back to an earlier stage of image correction in case you don’t like what you’ve currently done.
- Immediately after that are the Undo/Redo and Reset to Original controls that appear at the bottom left of the dialog. You can use these buttons to Undo/Redo parts of your image, or click the Reset to Original button to reset your image to the beginning of your corrections.
The Image Adjustment Lab dialog
Ideally, you’ll want to take care of light/color correction issues on location, but that’s not always possible.
Beyond this chapter is a video tutorial I’ve created on how to use the Image Adjustment Lab. Another option for image corrections is to work with the Tone Curve, which is also quite effective.