I think this picture is way too greenish and I'm not good at working with color. Everything I do I end up trashing it because I think it looks worse than when I started. So I'm asking for some step-by-step assistance. I also think one certain person's face is too red and splotchy.

Yup, you're right, the photo definitely doesn't lack any green :)

The solution is amazingly simple: Click on Image/Adjustment/Curves. In the right area of the window you will find three color pickers. Those are the perfect tools for your problem here! Just pick the middle picker (Please never ever quote that!). While the other two pickers are used to find the darkest and lightest part of the image, there are much tutorials about this, the middle one is to find the neutral color! Just click it and find a place in the image which is supposed to be of a neutral color, black white or some shade of gray, and click it. That's all!

I adjusted a little more and turned down the red hues on the mens faces by adding a color balance layer and turning red down. It's very sketchy but hope it helps to give you a push in the right direction?

Patrick

A quick way to deal with an overall cast (and simultaneously deal with oversaturation) is to duplicate the layer, then use Blur > Average, Ctrl-I to invert, and set the blending mode to Color. This results in a monochrome image. You then decrease the opacity to reintroduce the corrected color. Decrease a lot for a saturated look, or a little (as in this case) for a less saturated look.

you name it and I probably used it on some part of this picture. I also found the yellow shirt didn't work so I desaturated it.

I basically did as other have mentioned - Set a neutral point with curves (used the white folder in the background)

Then a hue/saturation adjustment layer and pulled the saturation down, and then pulled red saturation down seperately as well. Finally also selected Bill's face and reduced red on that a bit too.

Finally a slight sharpen and Neat Image noise reduction.

Here's what I came up with using variations.

Thank you to everyone! I love this forum! Now it's time for me to go play with all your instructions and methods.

Sylvia

Doug,

I really wanted to try your technique but I'm not understanding some of your directions. You say, 'Use the Blur tool > Average?' Where do I select 'Average'. I've pulled out my Photoshop book and I haven't found anything about an 'average blur'. Is 'Average' the blur tool that doesn't have a name next to the type of blur in the drop-down menu?

Thanks,
Sylvia Morris
sylviamorris@nc.rr.com

I'm using PhotoshopCS. Maybe Average blur is not in older versions of photoshop.

use the eye dropper and click a neutral color such as Bill's grey hair. It will give you a similar green to what Average blur tool will. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to it and you will have more control over the outcome.
The Blur/Average Color would be warm green in this picture...when you invert it is a greyish purple and will offset the green cast. Sometimes this method works great and sometimes not.

As an alternative to the hair which has white, grey and who knows what else, you could assume that his pants are an almost perfect neutral grey and that the dark part of his belt is black. That just leaves the highlights which aren't far off from my measurements but the highlite picker on the whites of the man's striped shirt will work.
To tweak out the rudiness go to Layers: Adjustments: Selective Colors and reduce the magenta.

Thanks for answering Sylvia's blur question.
CS2 adds even more blurs :)

Here's a very similar tutorial:
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=54

You can find out what the average color is by resizing down to 1x1 pixel with bicubic resampling turned on, sample the pixel, then undo. Then you can fill a layer with that color and continue on from there.

heres mine...

"As an alternative to the hair which has white, grey and who knows what else, you could assume that his pants are an almost perfect neutral grey and that the dark part of his belt is black. That just leaves the highlights which aren't far off from my measurements but the highlite picker on the whites of the man's striped shirt will work."

I was referring to "AVERAGE" color found in Edit/Blur/Average on previous post. In this picture it is obviously a shade of green. I had already found the Average color and then found that the hair most closely resembled it when using the color picker (for those PS versions that don't have Edit/ Blur/Average).
This method is not to be confused with using the pickers in Levels or Curves to capture highlight, grey point and shadows.

"
I was referring to "AVERAGE" color found in Edit/Blur/Average on previous post.

Thanks cspringer. I did understand your post but sometime later came back and just picked up on your first line. Sorry 'bout that, I use Average Blur quite a bit also, I don't think anyone had commented yet on a couple of fairly obvious black and grey points in the pants and belt. The one thing though that I often get using the Average method is a rather dull pic which needs some umph with curves. Not sure if anyone else has found that.

Cheers
Dave