Color Balance

Most of the time, I pass over Variations in favor of the Color Balance command (Figure 10.42) because it's available as an adjustment layer, which makes future changes much easier. Just like in Variations, the Color Balance dialog box allows you to shift the color of the Highlights, Midtones, or Shadows toward one of the primary colors; the only difference is that you'll have to look at the main screen to get a preview. Moving a slider to +15 or –15 is approximately the same as making one click in the Variations dialog box with the default setting on the Fine/Coarse slider. But because you're not forced to make adjustments in preset increments, I feel that it's much easier to be precise with this feature than with Variations.

Both Variations and Color Balance effectively shift the colors of your image toward one side of the color wheel. It's almost as if you start at the center of the color wheel and then shift toward one of the primary colors (Figure 10.43). All the colors in the image move toward that color, whereas Hue/Saturation and Replace Color spin the color wheel, which shifts all the colors in unusual ways (not just toward one particular color). There are a bunch of other commands that allow you to shift toward cyan or red, magenta or green, and yellow or blue in a less obvious way. Let's take a look at a few of the adjustments that allow you to work with those primary colors.