Color Balance - When you can't 'desaturate'

Below is a good example of when I usually won't 'desaturate' (see Hue & Saturation lesson). Reason is that if I 'turn down' the extra red in this shot, I'll also be 'turning down' the nice warm red of the woodwork in this stateroom.

Instead I'll be using the 'Color Balance' tool, which is found in my program under Image-Adjust-Color Balance. My tool will allow me to select whether I'm adjusting the color of the high end light, the mid range light or the darker/shadow range light.

The result above was achieved by selecting the middle range of light, and then sliding a selector bar for the cyan-to-red color zone more toward the cyan. The other two color ranges you can use will be magenta-to-green and yellow-to-blue. Often I'll need to counteract an adjustment I've made to the middle light zone by making extra corrections to the high or low end areas (i.e. I might need to boost the red in the 'shadows' if I've drained it from the middle).

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