Food Blog

Becks & Posh had a post on correcting photos about a month ago. Color casts and exposures are usually easily corrected with a few moves. Photoshop has an array of auto color correction tools which usually work well, but if the photo is badly under-exposed or lack a full range of values (typically what happens in a dark restaurant) the auto controls may not do enough or may give you some weird effects, sometimes hallucinogenic polarizing or posterizing. More precise control can be done in the levels or curves controls.

I’m afraid I don’t have Photoshop Elements and I’m aware not many are going to spend $600 or more to get the full version, but from what I gather, Elements has these controls.

Here’s the original photo of some Poached Skate Wing; Marinated Green Papaya; Lobster-Cardamom and Harissa Emulsion, shot at Le Bernadin last week.

Yicky isn’t it?

I opened the curves control (this procedure is similar to what can be done in the levels control, but the curves control give you many more options), clicked on the middle eyedropper (1), which is the gray point eyedropper and clicked on the image, on a point I thought should be the middle gray, probably somewhere on the shadows of the plate. The image instantly shifts to the correct color casts.

Didn’t work for you? That’s common if the photo is badly exposed in the first place. Truthfully it didn’t work quite right in this case. But now, using the individual color channels, and the curves, I could correct it if it went to far. Sometimes the curve is modified at the midtones, making an arc, with an anchor point, sometimes at the highlight point, shown here, in the blue channel by (2). Small corrections can be made by moving this anchor point. Be aware that if you move one in one color channel, you’ll probably have to move it in another channel.

These corrections can get complicated quickly and there are many advanced techniques you can learn, but you can start by using the auto controls (see the auto button?) and make small moves on the curves and achieve dramatic improvements.

By the way, the skate was excellent, but blown away by the skate I had later at Oceana. Recipes will be posted after I retouch the rest of my awful shots.