One of the most troublesome things in selling online is posting accurate, colorful, yet clean images of your products. I know that in the course of a week I probably spend more hours on the computer working on my photos, trying desperately to get a good, clear photo uploaded! This can be very frustrating =[ to say the least!
I am always looking for clear and accurate instructions on how to make my product photos better and have, on occasion even made a few videos myself on certain techniques.
To this end, I found a great tutorial on how to adjust colors and vibrancy in Photoshop CS3, which is my program of choice, and have included it here with permission from the author :0) Enjoy!

How to Quickly Fix a Picture's Color and Brightness in Adobe Photoshop Cs2

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

This short tutorial will show you how to use four keyboard shortcuts that will quickly improve color correction and brightness on a digital picture. (Shortcuts in this article are used in Windows operating systems)

Steps

1. Open your image in Adobe Photoshop CS2 = Click File > Open > browse your picture > Click OPEN. Or you can just press Ctrl+O.
   
2. Now that your image is loaded you can start using the following keyboard shortcuts, which will save you a lot of time when correcting an image color and brightness.
   
3. For auto levels press Shift+Ctrl+L.
   
4. For auto contrast press Alt+Shift+Ctrl+L.
   
5. For auto color press Shift+Ctrl+B.
   
6. The keyboard shortcuts will correct almost, if not, all common color corrections normally used to fix an image. Instead of going through the menu just use the time saving shortcuts.
   
7. Now for the fourth keyboard shortcut. Sometimes an image is either too dark for color correction, or too bright. There is a very simple way of fixing this. For this we use the Ctrl+M keyboard shortcut, which is known as Curves. Works better than Brightness/Contrast from the Adjustments menu. Press Ctrl+M.
   
8. You will see this little window pop up. Now you will find the correct grid to fix the brightness of the image.
   
9. I've highlighted the grid that you are going to manipulate in order to get the correct brightness for your image. If you drag the line diagonally to the upper left corner of the grid your image gets brighter. If you move the line diagonally to the bottom right corner of the grid your image gets darker.
   
10. Make sure that you have checked the box that says "Preview" highlighted in blue. This will allow you to see a real time change of brightness on your image.
    
11. Once you are satisfied with the results, press OK and save your image. (You can see the difference in the sky color in the image. The "AFTER" image has a more true blue-ish color than the raw image from "BEFORE". In other words; colors are more vibrant and true)
    

Tips

• Always make a copy of the original image. This is very important in case you make a mistake you have something to go back to.
  
• If you don't like the results of the changes you made, you can press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z to undo the last step. To undo multiple steps press Alt+Ctrl+Z.
  
• Play around with the Curves window menu. Changing the curves in RGB, Red, Green, or Blue mode will give some nice, and interesting, color results to your image.
  
• Be creative. It's your taste! and have fun editing.
  

Warnings

• Once again, always make a copy of the original image before editing it. If you make any mistakes in the editing process, or not satisfied with what you came up with, you'll have something to go back to and restart the process.
  
• When using these shortcuts you will find that changes to some pictures won't be noticeable. These kinds of pictures require true color editing; mostly scanned images. Don't worry much about these at the moment. Just try to use the Curves tool (Ctrl+M).
  

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Photoshop CS2 or CS3
  
• Your digital, or scanned, images
  
• Your creativity
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Replace Text in Adobe Photoshop
  
• How to Crop and Re Size Photos at the Same Time Using Adobe Photoshop 7
  
• How to Create a Colorful Mist Background in Adobe Photoshop
  
• How to Work With Photoshop Actions
  
• How to Change a Digital Picture from Color to Black and White
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Quickly Fix a Picture's Color and Brightness in Adobe Photoshop Cs2. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

note;
Even though my buddy here can seem to be a stoner(LOL) he produces very good tutorials and I suggest you look through them all - from beginner(we can all learn something new!) to advanced - I really like the content and his very clear instructions are hard to beat! =D

Thanks, as always, for "stopping by the shop!"
F

Well, my son didn't want to hear it, so I thought I'd tell you! lol Sometimes a mother's advice can be received with less enthusiasm than a snowstorm, but I was compelled to tell my son what he was doing wrong in his relationship... I know this is supposed to be about business, but my passion for wood is no greater than my passion for my children, there's just no separation between 'church and state', even in my blog.
My oldest told me this morning that he was going down to talk to his gf about the problems that were brewing.
1. he told her that she could have all of the male friends she wants as long as he gets to meet them before she is allowed to hang out with them - OUCH!! Doesn't that sound a little possessive???
First of all, never, and I mean NEVER! tell anyone who they can hang around with!! If I were her, I would've ran screaming from him... he says, "she tells me who I can hang out with, so I can do the same..." NO, you can't!
It's wrong, but normal, for her to tell you that, but you'll never get anywhere telling a woman that! lol It may be double standard, but heck, guys hang out with chicks because they want to do something with them - it's not usually the case for the female sex. I just happen to get along better with guys, but I don't want to sleep with them!?!
Secondly, he snuck into her MySpace account and found out she wasn't talking so nicely about him - well, do I have to say this? lol If you're looking, then you already know what's going on, but that's like looking in her diary! If he goes down and tells her, "I hacked into your MySpace account..." then he will surely come home a single guy once more! I don't know why girls complain about their men to others, and make things up, but they do :0( Shame on her, but SHAME on YOU for looking!!!
My poor baby is about to head to college in a few days and already the fort is crumbling - we told him so, but you can't tell the young anything - they know it all! How can a long distance relationship like this survive a school full of college girls?!? He's only human. My thought is that they are in this shape now because they know that it's not going to work out and for some reason we all need to be mad at each other to separate - it just unfortunately normal and I hate to see him hurt. He always gets hurt and he's such a good man. He never speaks ill of her about anything, but it's not in a woman's nature to be the same loyal companion... Sorry guys.
Anyway, just had to get that off my chest - he's going to his love pyre and I feel like he's earned it for his 'attempt at ownership' of a cat-like creature. Men are dogs, but women are cats... you get where I'm going on that! lol
Thanks for "stopping by the shop" uh, I mean "as the stomach churns"
Freida