Free PS Elements: Image correction in five seconds in Elements

1. Load the photo
All we want with this image is a bit of saturation increase, and some correction in brightness and contrast, the way Photoshop Elements "sees fit".

2. A dogged automatism
As we suffer a severe lack of time, we obviously try an automatic feature first. The main and fastest correction tool for colors, brightness and contrast is the Enhance/Auto Smart Fix command (Alt+Ctrl+M). It is quick as lightning, but is very bull-headed, not letting any control over the changes.

3. Half in the grasp
You may sometimes not need as much correction as Auto Smart Fix thinks, or, quite the contrary, you may need even more. This is when the semi-automatic version, Enhance/Adjust Smart Fix (Shift+Ctrl+M) comes handy. Mostly, this tool also works all by itself, but lets you specify the extent of corrections. You get a slider called Fix Amount that lets you set the strength of the changes from 0 to 200%. 100% means the strength suggested by the program. Decrease it for a weaker effect, Or set it over 100% for enhancement. In the example, the suggestion by Photoshop Elements was insufficient, so we used a value of 170%.

4. Smarthead
We didn’t need to bother with colors or brightness, but still we had some control over Smart Fix. And it really didn’t take more than a few seconds.

The light levels are a bit more balanced, the photo is less greyish, and colors look more lively.