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

Seems like it took forever to get to the 2 week coupon sale for the EFA Birthday Bash, but it's here! Finally!! I'm hoping that everyone has their code(hint: "DEER" w/o quotes!) and will get some shopping in =] I guess I better get with it and get my tags changed over! Always behind =D
I've been working on some new projects and am pretty happy about the Halloween Challenge on EFA Team blog, "Halloween Cats"! I just had finished my "Cats" puzzle and am going to paint one of them with appropriate colors and expressions for Halloween =D So fun! and so puurrrr-fect! lol
I joined a new site called Handmade Fuzion and hope that it will be fun - I was supposed to start selling there also, but I don't know if I'm going to yet. Will put in a link if/when I do =D
I also just finished some little Christmas ornaments - they're done in natural wood(Intarsia) and the only problem I'm having now is if I want to put a cord in them or make them magnets? Decisions, decisions! They are so cute though and makes me really want to get into my Christmas projects!
I just got a new setup for taking pictures but I'm still having trouble with the lighting setup - I thought I took great pictures, even at 12am! But now that I see them online I'm seeing a shadow across the right faces of the pieces and it still doesn't look great :-( My son just bought a Nikon film SLR and I'm hoping he gets good at taking photos and will photograph my pieces - I don't know about waiting for film developing though! lol I've become jaded with all of the instant gratification we have now in everything; want to know an answer to a question? Just "Google It!" want to see what your pictures look like? Just "upload them!" Want to empty your garage? no more yard sale BS! Just "List it on Craig's List or eBay!" It's all just too darn easy! lol
Anyway, will try using my new setup today while the sun is shining and see if I can get it right...
I have an order that has to be ready today so I'm not going to be spending too much time online today - I should've already had this done, but it's been hard getting some of the info I needed from her to finish the project. I still haven't heard back on her color choice so I'm just going to use the standard brown on it.
I definitely want to get more items done so folks will have lots of choices to use the coupon on - I'm really glad I get to do this. Not only does it help the animals, but my clients as well! Always a "Good Thing"!
That's it for now =D
Stay awesome and "Thanks for stopping by the shop!"
Freida

Good Heavens! I have a ton of other things I should be doing right now, but I saw this shop by accident and "oh my!" - I swear she pulled images right outta my head!? Not that I could actually put on screen or paper what's up there! lol
You've gotta check out this shop though - talk about 'eye candy'!!!
I rarely get this excited, but Wednesday's payday and you know where I'm gonna be - at

Here's her link;
Nicole Rae Photography - Please go, NOW!! if you love this visual enchantment!!!

Here's just a taste - enjoy! Now I really gotta get back to mommy stuff!!!!

Thanks for "stopping by the shop!"
Freida