OK, the first thing to do is duplicate your images as you work on each one, never work on your originals.
Then go to Enhance and play with the three bottom menus. Try Adjust Color and go thru the Color Variations.
You wont believe what you can do here with some time to play with your images.
But soon you will have some good advice from some of the experts here. But the most important thing is to play and have fun first, then concentrate on the correction. Have fun with them! There is no limit on what you can do with your photos. Jane
I assume you have tried Auto Color Correction and it has not worked.
One method to try:
(First, as Jane said, make sure you’re working on a COPY of your image)
1. Find something in the photograph that should be white (or gray or black, but white works best). Click on it with the eyedropper tool.
2. Layer->New->Layer, and in the dialog box that appears set Mode to "Color Dodge"
3. Edit->Fill and make sure Content is set to Foreground Color
4. DON’T PANIC. Your picture will look awful, but you’re working on a separate layer and we ain’t done yet
5. Image->Adjustments->Invert (or press Ctrl-I)
6. If you like the results, Layer->Flatten Image (optional step, but if you’re saving as a JPEG this makes that easier)
7. If not, either open the Layers palette and delete the new layer (it will be named "Layer 1") or use Undo to reverse what you’re just done – then try something else
Steve,
It is also a good idea to do most of the editing with color during your scan jobs, then final edit in Adobe. That is, if you are scanning your images of course. I had the same run in with old Ektachrome slides.
Robert S.
Steve,
Try a program called Vuescan from www.hamrick.com You can download a trial version and see if it supports whatever your scanner is. I found it very useful for scanning some 40yr old Kodachrome slides and older faded negatives. It has some useful options for restoring colour and fading. If it works, it’s relatively cheap.
Ian.
Steve,
I have restored quite a lot of old colour photographs that have colour casts and the way I tend to do it is:
Enhance>Adjust Brightness & Contrast>Levels
Above the histogram you will see a box that says RGB … you can change that to the different Red, Green & Blue histograms by clicking on it.
In each of the histogram colours (Red, Green & Blue):
Adjust the black triangle on the left hand side until it is at the beginning of the "black hump" of the histogram and the white triangle on the right hand side until it is at the end of the "black hump" of the histogram.
Quite a lot of the time this will sort out colour casts.
Wendy
Or…
If you can find something in the image that should be grey, using the Levels Adjustment, choose the middle eyedropper and click on the grey area in the image. This should get you close.
If you’re going to use Wendy’s or Nancy’s method (both of which are valid ways to proceed), I strongly recommend you use a Levels Adjustment layer rather than doing the levels adjustment on your base layer.
The layer method gives you the ability to go back later and change the settings if you want. You can also kill the layer completely if you later find something else that works better.
