CorelDRAW Help | Adjust color and tone

Adjust color and tone

To adjust color and tone automatically

To apply the Sample & Target effect

To apply the Light effect

To adjust the color balance

To apply the Gamma effect

To adjust hue, saturation, and lightness

To replace colors

CorelDRAW lets you adjust the color and tone of bitmaps. For example, you can replace colors and adjust the brightness, lightness, and intensity of colors.

By adjusting tone and color, you can restore detail lost in shadows or highlights, remove color casts, correct underexposure or overexposure, and generally improve the quality of the bitmaps. You can also correct color and tone quickly by using the Image Adjustment Lab. For more information, see Image Adjustment Lab.

You can adjust the color and tone of bitmaps automatically by using the Auto Adjust command or by using the following filters.

Effect	Description
Levels	Lets you adjust the tone, color, and contrast of a bitmap while preserving shadow and highlight detail. An interactive histogram lets you shift or compress brightness values to printable limits. The histogram can also be adjusted by sampling values from the bitmap.
Equalize	Lets you view the tonal range of an image and redistribute the balance of shadows, midtones, and highlights in the composite channel or in individual color channels according to a preset histogram model.
Sample & Target	Lets you adjust color values in a bitmap with sample colors taken from the image. You can choose sample colors from the dark, midtone, and light ranges of an image and apply target colors to each of the sample colors. For example, you can increase the contrast in a bitmap by choosing the darkest and lightest tones and mapping them to black and white respectively. After you choose sample colors from the dark, midtone, and light ranges of the image and assign a target color to each sample color, the pixels with the same color as the sample colors adjust to display the corresponding target color.
Tone curve	Lets you perform color corrections precisely, by controlling individual pixel values. By changing pixel brightness values, you can make changes to shadows, midtones, and highlights. For more information, see Tone Curve filter.
Light	Lets you adjust the brightness of all colors and the difference between light and dark areas
Color balance	Lets you add cyan or red, magenta or green, and yellow or blue to selected tones in a bitmap. For example, if you want to tone down the blue color in a photo, you can shift the color values from blue to yellow.
Gamma	Gamma is a method of tonal correction that takes the human eye's perception of neighboring pixels into account. For example, if you were to place a 10 percent gray circle on a black background and an identical gray circle on a white background, the circle surrounded by black appears lighter to the human eye than the circle surrounded by white even though the brightness values are identical. The Gamma effect lets you pick up detail in a low contrast image without significantly affecting the shadows or highlights. It affects the values in the image but it is curve-based so that the changes are weighted toward the midtones.
White Balance	Lets you achieve accurate colors in your photos by correcting color casts in your image. Color casts are typically caused by the lighting conditions when a photo is taken, and they can be influenced by the processor in your camera or scanner.
Hue/saturation/lightness	Lets you adjust the color channels in a bitmap and change the position of colors in the spectrum. This effect allows you to change colors and their richness, as well as the percentage of white in an image. Hue represents the dominant color (red, green, blue, yellow, and so on), saturation is the amount or richness of this color, and lightness represents the overall percentage of white in an image.
Black & White	Lets you produce a black and white image without changing the color mode. It also allows you to adjust individual colors for conversion, which modifies the intensity of the gray tones in the image when it’s converted. In addition, you can tint the image by modifying the hue and saturation. For example, you can add a tint to an image to produce a Sepia effect.
Vibrance	Lets you increase the saturation in an RGB image without causing clipping or "blowing out" the image. Clipping occurs when an area of an image is too bright and the color details in the area are lost, which can occur when you increase the saturation in an image indiscriminately. The Vibrance filter adjusts saturation proportionally by increasing the saturation of the less-saturated colors more than that of the saturated colors. This filter is useful for adjusting the saturation of images that include a person in front of a detailed background. For example, it allows you to boost the saturation of the background details without adversely affecting the skin tone of the person in the image.
Selective color	Lets you change color by changing the percentage of spectrum CMYK process colors from the red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta color spectrum in a bitmap. This filter also lets you add process color to the grayscale tonal component of an image. Selective color modifications increase and decrease the percentage of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black pixels that make up each primary color in the color spectrum. For example, decreasing the percentage of magenta in the reds spectrum results in a color shift toward yellow. Conversely, increasing the percentage of magenta in the reds spectrum causes a color shift toward magenta and an overall increase in red. The extent of color modification depends on the adjustment percentage method you choose.
Replace colors	Lets you replace one or more colors in an image, selection, or object. When you select the color you want to replace, the application automatically selects a range of similar colors to be replaced. You can select the original and replacement colors from the image or from a color picker. To add or remove colors from the selection, you can adjust the hue and saturation range. You can also select and replace a single color. To prevent abrupt color changes, you can smooth the transition between selected and unselected pixels. You can also set the hue, saturation, and lightness for the new color.
Desaturate	Lets you reduce the saturation of each color in a bitmap to zero, remove the hue component, and convert each color to its grayscale equivalent. This creates a grayscale black-and-white photo effect without changing the color model.
Channel mixer	Lets you mix color channels to balance the colors of a bitmap. For example, if a bitmap has too much red, you can adjust the red channel in an RGB bitmap to improve image quality.

By default, the application shows a live preview of the image in the document window as you change the settings in the filter dialog box. However, if you zoom in on the image in the document window to get a closer look at a specific area, but you still want to be able to evaluate the changes in the entire image, you can preview the image in the dialog box. For more information about previewing images in the dialog boxes of bitmap effects, see To apply a bitmap effect to an image area.

To adjust color and tone automatically

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Auto adjust.

To apply the Sample & Target effect

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Sample & Target.

3 Choose a color channel from the Channel list box.

The color channels that appear in the Channel list box depend on the color mode of the bitmap. There is one composite channel and one channel for each color component. If you want to adjust all color channels, even when viewing only one channel, enable the Adjust all channels check box.

4 Enable the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights check boxes.

5 Click the eyedropper tool in the Sample area, and click in the image to choose a dark area, midtone area, and light area, respectively.

6 Open the Target color picker for the shadows, midtones, or highlights, and choose a new color.

The shadows, midtones, and highlights in the image have been adjusted by mapping a sample color in the bitmap to a target color.

To apply the Light effect

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Light (or press Ctrl + B).

3 Move the Brightness, Contrast, Intensity, Highlights, Shadows, or Midtones sliders to adjust each aspect of your image, respectively.

Adjusting the brightness, contrast, intensity, highlights, shadows, or midtones lets you improve the clarity and quality of the image.

Brightness shifts all pixel values up or down the tonal range, lightening or darkening all colors equally.

Contrast adjusts the difference between light and dark colors.

Intensity brightens the light areas of the drawing or darkens the dark areas.

Contrast and intensity usually go hand-in-hand because an increase in contrast sometimes washes out detail in shadows and highlights, and an increase in intensity can bring it back.

Highlights adjusts the brightness in the lightest areas.

Shadows adjusts the brightness in the darkest areas.

Midtones adjusts the brightness in the midrange tones.

To adjust the color balance

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Color balance (or press Ctrl + Shift + B).

3 Perform a task from the following table.

To	Do the following
Color correct the shadow, midtone, and highlight areas	Enable the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights check boxes, respectively.
Retain the image original brightness level	Enable the Preserve luminance check box.
Add cyan or red	Move the Cyan-Red slider to the left or right, respectively.
Add magenta or green	Move the Magenta-Green slider to the left or right, respectively.
Add yellow or blue	Move the Yellow-Blue slider to the left or right, respectively.

The Color balance effect has been used to shift the colors in the image from blue to yellow.

To apply the Gamma effect

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Gamma.

3 Move the Gamma value slider.

Higher values brighten midtones; lower values darken them.

Adjusting the midtones lets you increase the detail in a low-contrast image without affecting the shadows or highlights.

To adjust hue, saturation, and lightness

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Hue/Saturation/Lightness (or press Ctrl + Shift + U).

3 Perform a task from the following table.

To	Do the following
Set the hue, saturation, and lightness for all channels	Enable the Master option in the Channels area.
Set the hue, saturation, and lightness of a channel	Enable the Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta, or Grayscale option in the Channels area.
Set the dominant color in an image	Move the Hue slider to redistribute the colors in an image.
Set the strength of colors	Move the Saturation slider. A setting of -100 results in a grayscale image. A setting of 100 produces vibrant, unnatural colors.
Set the amount of white (positive values) or black (negative values)	Move the Lightness slider.

The Before and After color ribbons help you compare the original colors and the new colors.

Use the Hue/saturation/lightness effect to change the colors in an image.

To replace colors

1 Select a bitmap.

2 Click Effects

Adjust

Replace Colors.

3 In the Original area, click the eyedropper tool

and sample a seed color from the image, or choose a color from the color picker.

The Range control shows the range of selected colors.

In the thumbnail preview, the selected colors appear covered by a lighter overlay.

4 In the New area, click the eyedropper tool and sample a color from the screen, or choose a color from the color picker.

5 To smooth the transition between selected and unselected pixels, move the Smooth slider.

You can also
Adjust the selected hue range	Point to one of the edges of the color band on the Hue range ring, and when the hand cursor appears, drag up and down. To shift the entire hue range of selected colors, click the handle of the color band on the Hue range ring, and drag around the ring. Note: When the color band is small, only pixels that are very similar to the color you selected are selected and replaced; when the color band is bigger, more pixels are selected and replaced. Adjusting the selected hue range
Adjust the saturation range of a hue’s shades to be included in the selection	Point to the inner or outer edge of the color band on the Saturation range circle, and drag when the pointer changes to a hand.
Replace a single color	Enable the Single color check box. Note: This feature is useful for replacing the color in areas filled with a uniform color.
Set the hue, saturation, and lightness of the output color	Move the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders, respectively.

The Replace colors effect has been applied to replace all instances of the color blue with purple.

To preview the image in the dialog box, click the Preview button . For more information about previewing images while adjusting settings, see To apply a bitmap effect to an object.

Some versions of CorelDRAW let you use only an earlier version of this filter, which is known as Replace Colors (Legacy).

The Replace Colors (Legacy) filter also lets you edit Replace Colors adjustments to images that are saved to the previous version of CorelDRAW.