BALANCE IN

ALL COLORS
LESSON 2.4
END IN MIND:
By the end of the meeting, the learners
should be able to:
•Identify the difference among shadows,
midtones, and highlights.
•Use color balance.
OVERVIEW
Why do we need to balance some elements in
an image?

Some photos may appear yellowish, reddish,

greenish, or blueish depending on the lighting when
we took it. We can correct this to make it look more
natural using GIMP.

Key Terms
CMY
A subtractive color model which has cyan,
magenta, and yellow as its components.

RGB
The most basic color model which has red,
green, and blue as its components.
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Color Balance
The Color Balance Tool modifies the balance of color levels using an RGB and CMY slider. It can
adjust three different ranges in a photo: Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights.

1. Open the image file, Family Photo.jpg.

Color Balance
2. To use the Color Balance Tool, go to the menu bar and click on Colors ► Color Balance.
Color Balance
3. The Color Balance dialog box will then appear.
Color Balance A. Range – where you will choose what range to adjust. There
are three ranges in a photo: Shadows (dark pixels), Midtones
(medium pixels), and Highlights (bright pixels).

B. Color Levels – allows you to change the color levels of a

photo using CMY and RGB colors in the image. CMY stands
for Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow, while RGB stands for Red,
Green, and Blue.

C. Preserve luminosity – activating this will maintain the

brightness of the selected layer by not changing the value of the
brightest pixels.

D. Split view – activating this will divide the photo into two
sides. The left side will show the adjustments or changes
applied to the photo, while the right side will show the original
version of the photo.
4. Start with the Midtones since these are the in-between colors, making them safer to adjust. (1) Select the
Midtones, then (2) go to the Color Levels and adjust the first slider, which is Cyan-Red. Decrease the color
levels going to Cyan to reduce the redness in the photo.
In the example, the value was set to -30. Tick the Split view option to view the changes. Notice how the
redness of the photo has now decreased.
5. Next, (1) click on Shadows in the range selector. Notice that the slider went back to 0.0. (2)
Adjust the Cyan-Red slider to -10 to decrease the redness of the photo even more.
 6. Lastly, (1) adjust the Highlights. (2) Go to the Cyan-Red slider and decrease
the value to -15. Notice that the redness of the photo has completely disappeared.
7. Click on OK once you are finished adjusting the color levels. The image now
looks more natural since the reddish tone and light are gone.
Thank you!