After you have adjusted the tones of your image (by using the Automatic Contrast Enhancement command), adjust the saturation. Saturation is an indicator of the relative amount of color vividness. Imagine a highly saturated color like bright orange. As the saturation is reduced (keeping the hue and lightness unchanged), the orange color becomes brownish, then taupe and finally a middle neutral grey (after the saturation has been set all the way down to zero). Reducing the saturation "drains" the color away, leaving just the greyscale component. Taupe and mauve are familiar, fairly low saturation colors because they are quite neutral, with just a touch of color. Apple red and banana yellow are high saturation colors. Generally speaking, saturation is a measure of how different a color is from a neutral grey of the same brightness.
For digital images, increasing the saturation can give the image brilliant color and "punch." But too much saturation will distort colors such as skin tones.
Paint Shop Pro has several commands that are useful for adjusting the saturation of an image. Go to the Adjust > Hue and Saturation submenu for a list of available commands.
The Automatic Saturation Enhancement command is useful for improving the saturation of your image. It automatically adapts its behavior to the color content of each image. Therefore, it will be most effective when used without any selections, because then the entire range of colors will be available for analysis.
Important: This command works on 16 million color and greyscale images only. To increase the color depth of an image, see Increasing the Color Depth of an Image.
To automatically enhance saturation:
Choose Adjust > Automatic Saturation Enhancement.
In the preview window in the upper left portion of the dialog, center an important part of the image. Pan the image by dragging the cursor in the preview window. Zoom in or out as necessary.
Set the Bias (which is the overall saturation) to your preferred target saturation. The command will automatically adjust the saturation to match this target.
Set the Strength of the correction to Weak, Normal or Strong.
Mark the Skintones present check box if appropriate. With this enabled, the saturation adjustment algorithm is modified in a way that produces more natural looking skin tones.
Click OK to apply the correction.
Basic Steps in Improving Photographs
How to Approach Color, Contrast, and Saturation Adjustments
Common Problems and How to Solve Them
Removing Image Defects and Noise