Photo Color Correction

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

Black and White to Pure Black and White

Scans of black and white photos may add unwanted color if the scanning is done with a color scanner, even if the scanner was calibrated.

In the black and white photo below, there is yellow. The yellow does nothing for the image. It makes it look weak and unprofessional; it does not look natural.

Note the highlighted part of the Info Palette in the image below, where it shows Yellow is 9% (Y: 9%). CMYK is not used for web colors, but for the purpose of illustrating the problem here, it is a quick and simple way to show the color. You can just move the cursor in Eyedropper mode over the photo to check for colors; readings change dynamically.

A more vivid illustration of the color problem is noted below using the Color Picker.

Another way to show there is unwanted color is to temporarily maximize the saturation level using an Adjustment Layer.

Layer > New > Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation > +100

This shows how much color and what parts of the supposedly "black and white" image have unwanted color. As the image shows, it's not just color in the light yellow areas but also dark blue and purple in the dark areas.

To correct this color problem, and remove all unwanted color, you can convert the image to grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale).

Or you can add an Adjustment Layer and remove all color by total desaturation (Saturation -100).

Layer > New > Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation

Note: Conversion to grayscale is irreversible: Adjustment Layer changes are not.

Note the difference in file size. The original picture before color correction is 48,450 KB. The final picture after color correction (color removal) is 36,768 KB.

Black and White Photo After Photo Color Correction