Color correction in PS

[lkohawaii]

When I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos do I have to go through each one and color correct in PS or is there a shortcut that they will all color correct. I'm not good at the program so I usually go to auto color correct and auto contrast. If I don't like what I see I just undo it. It's a lot of time to do it to hundreds of pics..but the guy at the photo finishing place said not to depend on their "color correction". Thanks.

 

[allyn]

why do you need to color correct all your photos? is there something wrong with your camera or are the settings (like white balance) wrong?

 

[Anewman]

When I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos do I have to go through each one and color correct in PS or is there a shortcut that they will all color correct. I'm not good at the program so I usually go to auto color correct and auto contrast. If I don't like what I see I just undo it. It's a lot of time to do it to hundreds of pics..but the guy at the photo finishing place said not to depend on their "color correction". Thanks.

You can create an action that does auto color and auto contrast(I would do levels instead) for you. So pretty much open the picture and hit F3(or whatever key you set it as) and it does it for you, if you dont like the results you can undo(crtl Z). I am not a fan of AUTO anything but it would at least save you time.

When you say "their" color correction you mean the photo labs, correct?
Well if you correct your own photos make sure that the lab turns theirs off, it makes no point to adjust your photo only to have the lab change it.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

There is definitely something wrong if you are trying to autocorrect the color on all of your shots. If you shot them RAW, you may want to try converting them with a global setting in ACR. If they are JPG my recommendations would be:

1) Leave them alone.
2) Correct all shots taken in the same lighting with the same correction.
3) Correct them individually and carefully.

PS doesn't have any way of knowing what the white balance really should be. Auto-correcting is like asking it to guess. Sometimes it guesses well; other times it doesn't. If you do this to a set of photos, the results will vary from photo to photo. It's my experience that being consistently a bit off in your white balance is nowhere near as annoying as having the white balance shift from photo to photo.

 

[manning]

Or the monitor needs calibrating.

 

[fitzperry]

Or the monitor needs calibrating.

Good point. If your monitor isn't calibrated, there's a decent chance you're wasting your time doing color corrections, and you may be better off relying on the photo lab.