How To Adjust Color Temperature Using Camera Raw or Curves in Photoshop Elements

Adjusting the color temperature of an image can make a big difference to the feel of the image. Usually people prefer a slightly warm color temperature rather than neutral, though if you want your image to have a cold look, you may want to adjust the color temperature to be cooler.

There are quite a few different ways to adjust the color temperature of a photo. Probably the easiest way is using the White Balance tool and color temperature slider in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).

Using Adobe Camera Raw to adjust the color temperature

If you are working with a RAW file, you can just open the file in Photoshop and it should automatically open up Camera Raw. If you want to adjust a JPEG or TIFF file, then in Photoshop go to File > Open As...

In the Open As dialog, select the file you want to open, then change the 'Open As' option to Camera Raw (followed by a long list of RAW filetypes). Then click 'Open' to open the file in Camera Raw.

In ACR click the White Balance dropper tool (at the top of the window), and click on an area of the image that should be a neutral color (somewhere between dark gray and very light gray). Camera Raw will automatically select the correct color temperature and tint settings to make the area that you clicked neutral.

Probably you will want the image looking slightly warm rather than the more clinical neutral color balance, so adjust the temperature slider, and move it to the right slightly.

Using curves to adjust the color temperature

An alternative way to adjust the color temperature of an image, is by using a curves adjustment. This is more time consuming than using the white balance tool in Camera Raw, but has the benefit of allowing much finer control.

Photoshop Elements doesn't include a real curves adjustment ability, so doing a curves adjustment isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop CS. Still, it is possible to perform curves adjustments in Photoshop Elements, you will need to start by downloading and installing the Smart Curve Curves Adjustment for Photoshop Elements.

If you are using Photoshop Elements, you will need to install the Smart Curves filter, then open it via Filter > easy.Filter > SmartCurve. In the SmartCurve window, hover the mouse pointer over the preview image, and place the cursor over an area of the image that should be neutral.

In the top right hand corner of the SmartCurve window, you will see 3 figures for the Red, Green, and Blue values at the current mouse position. For a neutral subject, we want all 3 of these values to be the same, if your image has a color cast, the values are likely quite different.

Make a note of the Red, Green, and Blue values.

To correct the color cast using curves, change the Channel (on the right hand side, it will currently say 'RGB'). If your image has a red or cyan cast, first select the Red Channel. If the image has a Green or Magenta cast, select the green channel. If the image has a Blue or yellow cast, select the blue channel.

You now want to correct the curve for that channel so that the values are nearer to the other values. For example, if I have an image with the following values: R199, G176, B111. This image has a yellow tint, you can see the blue value there is far less than the red and green values.

So I select the blue channel and then add a point to the middle of the curve. Checking the In and Out values in top right hand corner of the Smart curves window, I place the point around 111. I now pull this point upwards. For a completely neutral image I should pull it to 176 (the same as the green value, and I would need to adjust the Red value as well), but I want a slightly warm image, so I pull it to 170.

You may find that after a single channel adjustment, your color temperature is correct, but often you will need to adjust two or all of the channels. Play around with the different channels, moving them up and down until you get a color balance you are happy with. In my example, I found that modifying the curves to give the final RGB values of R213, G194, B166 gave a pleasing color balance.

Photoshop Techniques - Improve Your Photos With Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves Adjustments

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are both post processing techniques that can be used to enhance a photo quickly and easily. Both techniques can be applied in both Photoshop Elements as well as the full Photoshop CS versions. Most other image editing programs such as Paint Shop Pro also have similar tools available to achieve the same effects.

The Keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this article are based on the Windows version of Photoshop. If you using a Mac, where a keyboard shortcut uses the Ctrl key, use the Cmd key instead.

Local Contrast Enhancement

Local Contrast Enhancement (LCE) works by darkening or brightening areas where a transition between a dark and light tone occurs. It is a good way to add contrast to an image without darkening larger dark areas or brightening larger light areas too much.

To apply LCE to an image, start by duplicating the current image - there are a few different ways you can do this:
Select the current image layer and press Ctrl + J, orClick the layer and drag it down to the 'New layer' icon, orPress Ctrl + A to select all. Press Ctrl + Shift + C to copy merged. Now press Ctrl + V to paste, you may need to adjust the positioning of the pasted image slightly using the move tool to ensure it is exactly aligned with the original image (or you can use Ctrl + Shift + V to paste in the same position if you are using Photoshop CS5). Use this option if you want to apply the effect to a document made from multiple layers.

Now with your new layer selected, on the menu go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Choose a radius of 100 pixels for the High pass filter, then click OK.

Change the blending mode for the Highpass layer to Overlay, and reduce the effect by lowering the layer's opacity. Typically an opacity of 15-30 percent works well, though you can of course use a higher opacity for a stronger effect.

Curves adjustment

A curves adjustment is an easy way to change specific tones in an image. Although it can be used to darken or brighten a whole image, usually we will use it to increase the contrast by darkening the dark tones, and brightening the light tones.

Photoshop Elements doesn't include a real curves adjustment ability, so doing a curves adjustment isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop CS. Still, it is possible to perform curves adjustments in Photoshop Elements, you will need to start by downloading and installing the Smart Curve Curves Adjustment for Photoshop Elements.

Although Photoshop Elements does include a rudimentary curves adjustment that can be accessed via Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color Curves, I would recommend installing the curves plugin for the greater control that it gives you.

The Smart Curve doesn't work as an adjustment layer, so you will first need to make a copy your image to apply the adjustment to (see the section above for how to create a copy layer). For this image I used the copy merged method as I have more than 1 layer making up the image.

With the copied layer selected, go to Filter > easy.Filter > SmartCurve. The SmartCurve window opens, and on the left you can see a box with a diagonal line going from the bottom left to top right. This represents the tones in the image, from black in the bottom left corner, to white in the top right corner.

For my image, I want to keep the bright tones roughly the same, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge. I want to darken the dark tones, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge, and then drag this point down a bit.

You can add as many points to the curve as you want, and move each point up or down, usually though you will only want to add one or two points.

In Photoshop CS, to access curves you click the adjustment layer icon, and then choose 'Curves'. In the adjustment panel you can then adjust the curve.

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are very useful basic Photoshop techniques to know for enhancing digital photos. Remember that with both techniques you can adjust the opacity of the layer to change how strong the effect is. Sometimes you'll want to use both techniques together, sometimes you might just want to use one of the techniques.

The benefit of these simple Photoshop techniques is that they're quick and easy to apply, so you can apply the effect, then undo it if it doesn't suit the image. Local Contrast Enhancement is particularly suited to images with a lot of low contrast texture you want to bring out. Curves adjustments are more useful for globally increasing contrast, for example for a photo shot through a dirty window.