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 the girl accepted his words, to my utter surprise he came home that night with a muttered, "everything's fine, why?" Maybe I don't know the heart, like I thought I knew the heart?!?lol I'm glad though - she makes him so happy, and what mother wouldn't want her boy to be happy?
It's been a while since I've written - my toes are so cold from sitting here at the computer for the last 3 hours that I don't know if it's worth trying to write a decent blog post right now or not! lol
The length of time has been well-spent though, trying to catch up on all of the EFA things I needed to do but haven't had the chance to yet; I wrote in about the Treasury I curated - though it's not getting much in the way of views. It was planned a long time ago and though I started to change my mind on the theme, but I didn't. So "Birds of a Feather" it is - when it expires I will put a screen shot up - I think I'll plan another for a little further in the future.
In regards to the folks that seem to have a treasury up all of the time I used to think, "Dang, they must think they've got the corner on believing they have such great taste that we all just want to see what they pick..." but I know better now, it's ADDICTING darn it! and I know my taste is not to everyone's liking, but I've been exposed to so many talents that I would've never known about had I not done a few of these, and besides promoting my fellow EFA members, I just want to share what I've found! =D
Also, I'm in another Treasury and it's a really beautifully rendered collection - it's soon to expire so I will post the screen shot that includes the current listing, but after today it will not be clickable... enjoy! I'm hoping it make front page as it's 3rd from the top in activity, so who knows!?!
I'm also working on my new website - the old deermountainwoodart.com has been moved to a new domain host as well as a new website host, so it's been keeping me a little busy - new systems are so hard to learn as I grow older!lol and I have been trying to finish the Intarsia book, but my contributors have not gotten in all of their items, so we're kind of 'on hold' - doesn't look like a Aug 31st publishing date anymore :( but it really doesn't matter as long as we get it done before September is over!
I went to the little yardsale/art sale at the firestation this last weekend and it was just a mess - but I did manage to get to know a little about a couple that wants quite a bit of pieces done, so all was not lost. I did go home early as it just didn't look like much was going to happen. But I didn't expect much, just wanted my neighbors to know that I am still here and still working the wood. They were duely impressed I think?lol =D
So, in the title I wrote "Orders and Order" - I will sum that up here;
"Orders" - have a few orders from this last couple of weeks that I'm working on:

• Dolphin Helmet - for Kay
• Bronco's Helmet - for Kay
• Keepsake Pet Portrait Box - for Leanne
• Dragon Treasure Box - for eBay buyer, Greg
• City Scape - for lady at firestation
• Timberwolf on Burl - for guy at firestation
• "Art Block" - Wolves, number 3, using a painting done by a fellow Etsian
• and finally, a 'game cock' Intarsia piece for Nathan

So I've gotten busy, but I need to get these orders out before the Xmas orders get really started!

"Order" - working on getting my life, websites, blogs, and home in order. Through the summer, things have gotten quite out of control - my wood is everywhere as well as 'pieces in progress', so I'm trying to spend a share of my time getting my life, in general, in order.
I'll also be catching up my personal blog, "Three boys and a dog", and writing all of my 'personal' things there instead of letting them sneak over to here and vice' versa! So if you are interested at all, click on the link and prepare to be astounded by the chaos that is my real life! lol
Well, that's it for now - I was planning on getting busy at 9am but I see it's crept to 9:18 and I really have to get going! It's been so much more fruitful with the boys in school. I miss them, but it's so quiet right now that I would be remiss to not get a lot done while they're gone!!
Thanks for stopping by the shop! I always hope you enjoy, even just a little, my ramblings :0) and will come back often!
Freida