After finding my scans had slight overkill in the reds, and were sometimes low on saturation, I came to use
Photoscape (I've posted a link in the
Useful Programs thread). It is an excellent, low-resource freeware for photo editing, which I use for post-scan colour-adjustment issues. The menus are easy to use and comprehensive enough to get what you need, and the auto-settings aren't bad at all (if you aren't yet sure about using colour-graphs).
For colour adjustment in Photoscape, my usual process tends to be:
- Use contrast settings first. I usually find bringing out the colour via contrast actually makes it easier to work on and adjust.
- Low saturation scans can be given a boost with auto contrast (there are manual sliders also) settings, as well as the 'depth' function which seems to enrich the images a little. It's also possible to bring out shadow details with the 'backlight' function.
- Colour-adjust using the graphs in Photoscape (it allows you to separately adjust reds, greens, and blues). My scans tend to have a reddish finish, so I counteract this with reducing reds in the mid/low areas, and then adding a little luminance, which usually seems to work.
I'm learning as I go (evident from my scans in other threads
), but I've found the use of colour graphs is a much better tool than using RGB sliders for any colour-correction issues. The major drawback with Photoscape is that it doesn't use layers, so stitching together double-spreads needs to be done in something such as Paint.net.