Photoshop Elements Quick Fix

If you are new to digital photography or experienced at digital imaging, you'll find the tools you need to correct and enhance your photos in Photoshop Elements. In this tutorial you'll learn about basic tools and techniques to make your photos look their best. Be sure to look under the Help menu to read additional tutorials.

The Photoshop Elements Quick Fix dialog box gathers several image correction tools in one spot. You can fix photos that are too dark or too light, have an off-color cast, need more contrast, or need sharpening. Before and after previews let you compare adjustments to your original image before saving the changes.

1. Open the Quick Fix dialog box.

With the file you want to fix open, choose Enhance > Quick Fix. The Quick Fix dialog box opens and presents tools for fixing photographs and tips for using the tools.

To make adjustments to your photograph:

Select an adjustment category

Choose a category from the list:

• Brightness adjusts your photo's contrast and brightness, and quickly fixes overexposed or underexposed areas.
• Color Correction adjusts the saturation and color (hue) in your photo, and automatically corrects a color cast.
• Focus sharpens or blurs your photo.
• Rotate flips your image horizontally and vertically, or rotates your image at 90° or 180° angles.

Select an adjustment

Each category has multiple adjustments that you can choose. The Tips provide more information for each adjustment.

Apply the adjustment

If an adjustment has options to set, drag the slider to increase or decrease the value. If you selected an automatic adjustment, click Apply.

2. Rotate the photograph.

Choose Rotate from Select Adjustment Category, rotate the photo right, and then click Apply.

The photograph in our example was taken with a digital camera at a vertical orientation. The After preview shows the new orientation.

To straighten an image that was captured at an angle, or for more rotation options, choose Image > Rotate rather than Quick Fix.

3. Correct the color and contrast.

The photograph in our example has a blue color cast, and it needs a little more contrast. We can fix both of these problems using Auto Color.

Choose Color Correction from Select Adjustment Category, select Auto Color, and then click Apply.



If your photograph needs more contrast, but the color looks fine, you could use the Auto Contrast command in the Brightness category. The Tips provide more information on when to use an adjustment.

4. Sharpen the photo.

Choose Focus from Select Adjustment Category, select Auto Focus, and then click Apply. You can click Apply multiple times for additional sharpening.

5. Accept the changes.

If you are satisfied with the adjustments click OK.

If you are not satisfied, you can undo, redo, or reset the adjustments:

• Click Undo once or multiple times for each successive adjustment you'd like to undo. Clicking Undo can undo the Reset Image option.
• Click Redo once or multiple times for each adjustment you'd like to redo that was undone.
• Click Reset Image to start over and undo all adjustments you've set in the current Quick Fix dialog box.

6. Learn more correction techniques.

The image adjustment tools in the Quick Fix dialog box are individually available in the Photoshop Elements menus. You can work in the Quick Fix dialog box or choose the tools you need individually.

In addition, you might want to become familiar with other image correction tools:

Variations

to fix color casts, add color saturation, and lighten and darken images.

Levels and adjustment layers

to have more control over contrast, brightness, and color adjustments.

Unsharp mask

to precisely control sharpening in your photo.