Help the Newbie, win effulgent gratitude!

[Nonesuch]

Hi Folks

Boy, am I ever glad I've found this site. I'm looking for some solutions about (I think) color balances. But maybe I'm off on the wrong track entirely.

I'm making a slide show for the curator of a culinary collection. I have lots of JPGs of pages from old (really old) cookbooks, but they were taken in some strange light and their color is off -- mostly too orange, and the black ink develops a mysterious blue halo.

"Adjust Level" (the newbie's friend) sometimes helps with the color of the page, but usually makes it too yellow. I've attached a sample so you can see what I mean about orange -- that's not a colored page!

The pages don't need to be bright white, in natural light they're mostly cream tones. The blacks need to be solid black.

Is there a solution a newbie can understand? Can someone point me to a tutorial that addresses this?

thank you!

Nonesuch

[Mike]

Not sure I am reading this correctly, if the final product you want is black and white, just turn it into a grayscale (drop the color channels). Then no yellow, blue or anything but B & W......
The yellow color could be the result of normal paper ageing.....
Mike

[mead]

Hi, I played with the picture, not sure if this is what you want or not. I used replace color.
I made the background much lighter. But not white.I also darkened the letters.
Hope that helped.
kathy

[mead]

Here is another, lighter background.
kathy

[Nonesuch]

Originally Posted by Mike

Not sure I am reading this correctly, if the final product you want is black and white, just turn it into a grayscale (drop the color channels). Then no yellow, blue or anything but B & W......
The yellow color could be the result of normal paper ageing.....
Mike

Hi Mike (and anybody else who's reading)

I see I didn't make myself clear. Let me try again!

1) I can't do black & white, unfortunately. The curator I'm working for wants color images, with the pages their natural aged color (variations on cream and buff, depending on age and paper) and the ink black. I'm allowed to darken the print, if ineed to, but not do much else.

2) The paper *has* aged, but the color of the image I get with "Auto Levels" is much yellower than the paper in normal light. It looks unnatural.

I have about 40 images with more or less the same problem, so I'm looking for a bulk solution. I'm guessing there is one, but I'm too inexperienced to know what to call it.

thanks!

Nonesuch

[mead]

HI again, I'm sorry that my first attempts were so far off from what you wanted.
Although my selections aren't precise on this one, is this along the lines that your searching for?
kathy

[Nonesuch]

Originally Posted by mead

HI again, I'm sorry that my first attempts were so far off from what you wanted.
Although my selections aren't precise on this one, is this along the lines that your searching for?
kathy

Hi again Kathy

Actually, the color on the first one you did was great for my purposes. I didn't see your last 2 posts until just now, because I've been hunting through the tutorials.

I tried using replace color on the whole original image (a huge file I couldn't upload) and I couldn't get it to look natural. Any tips on using replace color?

thanks!!!!

Nonesuch

[mead]

HI there, glad that replace color may work for you. I'm fairly new to retouching too, but I can tell you what worked for me.

I used the eyedropper in the tools pallette, set to 3x3 sample. I clicked on the orange background of the picture.
Went to the replace color. I just played with the lightness slider in the replace color, moved to the right. Anywhere from + 50 to mid 70's looked pretty natural on my monitor.
If your background isn't all selected, just use the fuzziness slider,at the top of the replace color, to adjust what is selected. You can also use the eyedroppers within replace color to add or subtract from what color you are changing. I only adjusted the fuzziness slider with your picture.
Hope that helps.
Kathy

[freelancer]

Hi,

Nice work with the replace color, Kathy.

I worked in a print shop, so I am partial to using CMYK with a hue/saturation adjustment layer.

Here's my try.

Photoshop 7
Image/Mode/CMYK
Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Hue Saturation
Drop down menu: Change "Edit: Master" to "Edit: Yellows"

Move Saturation and Lightness sliders to desired effect.

Example 1: Lightness +100
Example 2: Saturation +50, Lightness +100

[mead]

Thanks freelancer. I also tried your method with the hue adjustment layer. Kept it in RGB mode, I have Elements 2.Worked well, I'll remember that. Fun the way there are so many different ways to do the same thing.

kathy

[denschneider]

this is the four click method. . click curves adj layer, double clik on white eye dropper chose colour for paper , then click on paper . do the same with the black eye dropper for the black lettering. if you have a lot of these pictures that you want to colour the same, when it askes if you want to save "new target colours as default" say yes then on the other pictures just click the eyedropper once thenclick on the photo to set the colour.

[denschneider]

sorry i forgot to attach the photo. so here it is