color matching similar photos

Good day folks,

My first post here so apologies if its been covered before. I used the FAQ section but nothing seemed to come up.

Basically I have 3 digital photos that are part of a panorama. After I load them into PS, there is a slight color imbalance between each of them, eg the sky in one is a bit more yellow looking than one of the others. So the question is, is there an easy way to select a photo and "color balance" it to match another, similar, image?

I'm using PS v7. I've heard that CS has Image-Adjustments-Match Color.

Well, u can just go to image-->adjustments-->colorbalance :D If that's what u mean... Just try out some of the features: I think u must drag the slider away from yellow when it's to yellow, but I don't realy know the different between shaddows/midtones/highlight, but I guess there names already say a lot...

Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation, play around with it until they all match.

Selective Color Matching

Open the image with color you like.

Make sure your Info Palette is visible.

Select the Eyedropper Tool.

Look
at the Options Bar, and set the sample size to 5 x 5. This will give
you a good average color from a sample size larger than just one
individual pixel.

Hold the Shift key, and you'll see that the
cursor changes. This signifies that you're ready to lay down a Color
Sampler. Find a good spot to sample the color you want, and click
there. You may lay down up to 4 Color Samplers in each image.

Look
at your Info Palette and you'll see that it has expanded to now include
a pane (or panes) that display(s) the color component make-up of the
spot (or spots) where you dropped a Color Sampler (or Samplers). In
that pane you'll see a tiny little eyedropper icon, right below the
"#1". Click and hold for a drop-down menu. Change the read-out to CMYK.
This won't change the color-mode of your image, so don't worry about
that. It just makes the following steps more intuitive.

Write down the values for C, M, Y, and K.

Open the second image in which you want to match the color to a similar color in the first.

Now, for one of the most important parts of the process: Make
an accurate selection of the areas you want to adjust. Save it as an
Alpha Channel (Select---»Save Selection...New Channel) just to be on
the safe side, and save your changes to the document.

Using
the Eyedropper again, Shift-Click to drop a Color Sampler in the new
image, in an area that is similar in brightness as the sampler in Image
1.

Change the readout of this new sampler to CMYK.

With your object still selected, go to "Image---»Adjustments---»Selective Color..."

Choose a color in the drop-down menu that is as close as possible to the color of the area you want to adjust.

Now,
while you keep an eye on the Color Sampler pane in the Info Palette,
adjust the sliders in the Selective Color dialogue. You'll see the
numbers change in the Info Palette. The numbers to the left of the
slashes (/) are the "before" readouts, the numbers to the right of the
slashes are the "After" readouts.

Play around adjusting these
Selective Color sliders until the "After" numbers for the second image
Color Sampler match (or get really close to) the C, M, Y and K values
you wrote down for the Color Sampler in the first image.

Sometimes
you'll need to work the sliders for more than one of the Selective
Color drop-down menu colors. I usually start with the drop-down choice
of "Neutrals," because it often allows me to do most of the correction
there...lots of bang-for-the-buck. Also, you may need to make Selective
Color adjustments, hit "OK" and then call the Selective Color dialogue
up a second—perhaps even a third—time.

Just match the "After" numbers for Image 2 to the Before numbers that you wrote down for Image 1.

There are other methods for doing this, but this is one of the easiest ways. Keep
in mind that the changes you make are destructive (i.e.: not reversible
after you save and close the document). Because I trust my abilities, I
know what I can get away with, and I'm usually satisfied with the
results. If you have any worries about making permanent changes, just
duplicate the layer you want to work on so you can go back to the
original color if you need to.

When you're finished,
you remove the Color Samplers by again selecting the Eyedropper tool
and (Shift+Option) [Shift+ALT] clicking (see the scissors cursor?) on
the Color Sampler icon (s) in the image window.

thanks Utopian for the very detailed info I tend to get very lost when only a couple steps are defined when there are actually many...for us noobs

-smitters