Restoring the natural color of photos even under bad lighting

White Balance restores the natural color temperature of an image by removing wrong color casts due to conflicting light source and incorrect camera settings.

For example, an object illuminated with incandescent lights may turn out too reddish or yellowish in an image (see left image below).

To successfully achieve its natural effects, PhotoImpact provides you with four White Balance options: Auto, Pick Color, White Balance presets and Temperature. In this tutorial, we will learn how to correct White Balance using Auto and Pick Color.

To correct images using the Auto option:

1. Open the photo you want to work on.
2. Select Photo: Color - White Balance. When the White Balance dialog box opens, it automatically selects Auto, displaying the enhanced version of your image on the right side of the screen.



3. When you're satisfied with the result, click OK.

If not, you can make your image appear brighter by adjusting the values under Perception attribute and Fine-tune.

To correct images using the Pick Color option:

1. Open the photo you want to work on.
2. Select Photo: Color - White Balance.
3. Click Pick Color. This will change your cursor to an eyedropper icon once you drag it to the Before Window of the White Balance dialog box.
4. Click to identify a reference point in your image which represents the color white.

For example, if we click the wedding dress of the girl in the image below, the result will be that all color areas similar to the color of the dress will be white or neutral gray.

1. Adjust Ambient Light to determine brightness setting.
2. Fine-tune your image by adjusting the red, green and blue cone spaces of the image.
3. Click OK.