With time and exposure to the elements, especially light, the dyes in a photograph fade. Colors become less vivid, the image acquires an undesirable color cast, and contrast is lost. Use the Fade Correction command to restore color and contrast to faded photographic images. You can apply the command to a selection or an entire image.
The Fade Correction command is a simple, one-step adjustment that corrects both color and contrast. If the resulting image doesn’t look as good as you would like, the image may need different adjustments. Instead, try applying the three automatic adjustments from the submenus of the Adjust menu in this order: Automatic Color Balance, Automatic Contrast Enhancement, Automatic Saturation Enhancement. Note: Black-and-white photos have no colors to correct. Instead, use the Automatic Contrast Enhancement command to restore the photograph. See Automatically Enhancing Contrast.
Important: This command works on 16 million color images only. To increase the color depth of an image, see Increasing the Color Depth of an Image.
To use fade correction:
Choose Adjust > Color Balance > Fade Correction.
In the preview window, center an important part of the image (such as a face). Pan the image by clicking and dragging in the preview window; zoom in or out as necessary.
For Amount of correction, start with 45 and adjust the value until the image looks the most natural.
Note: Use the minimum value that produces a good correction. If you apply too much correction, highlight and shadow areas may lose detail and objects may blend together.
Click OK.
Automatically Balancing Colors
Using Source and Target Colors to Correct Colors Manually
Using Greyworld to Adjust Colors