If you’re like me, you’ve often run across photos with a color cast

A color cast is an unwanted color tint that is the result of lighting conditions such as strong incandescent lamps, fading or damage to a printed photo, or incorrect white balance settings on a digital camera. While most color casts are fairly simple to correct using Photoshop’s “Levels” controls, images with a very strong color cast can be problematic. Making extreme adjustments to a photo using the “Levels” controls can produce unexpected results. Although there are many different techniques out there to remove color casts, this one is my all-time favorite because it produces excellent results with minimal effort.

Open the image in Photoshop and create a duplicate of the background layer by choosing Duplicate Layer… in the Layers palette.

Select your new duplicate layer, and choose Filter→Blur→Average from the main menu. This will fill the layer with a solid color that is the average of all the colors contained in your image.

From the main menu, select Image→
Adjustments→Invert
. This inverts the color of the layer to produce its exact opposite on the color wheel–in this case, a light blue.

Change the Blending Mode of the layer to Color and adjust the opacity to an initial setting of 50%. This has the effect of neutralizing the color cast by applying a colored overlay that is opposite of the original “problem” color. Adjust the opacity of this adjustment layer until you achieve the desired effect.

You can then merge the source and adjustment layers and make additional adjustments using the Levels command, if needed. While there is no substitute for great original photographs, this technique can help you anytime you have a photo with poor overall color balance.