Auto Color Problem

[Wolfman]

I hardly ever use auto color, tone or contrast but when I tried it recently it causes the image I have used it on to
go solid white. Does the same thing on any image. Is anybody familiar with this and have a solution? I am using
PSCC 2017 on a mac.

[razrblck]

I tried it a couple of times, never found it useful though. Never saved me time, in fact made me waste more. When I tried all three auto corrections at the same time, results were very dramatic in a bad way, so I'm not surprised by your findings.

When I have to do extensive color and contrast correction on a photo I convert the layer to smart object and use the Camera Raw filter on it. Smart objects let you apply any filter in a non destructive way, so you can always alter them later. If you have a lot of other layers there will be limitations, but for single layer photos it's like using Lightroom (well, sort of).

Otherwise you can use a curve adjustment layer, which is also a non destructive way to change color balance and contrast in the scene. The advantage of this is that you can use layer masks and stack adjustment layers.

[Wolfman]

I tried it a couple of times, never found it useful though. Never saved me time, in fact made me waste more. When I tried all three auto corrections at the same time, results were very dramatic in a bad way, so I'm not surprised by your findings.

When I have to do extensive color and contrast correction on a photo I convert the layer to smart object and use the Camera Raw filter on it. Smart objects let you apply any filter in a non destructive way, so you can always alter them later. If you have a lot of other layers there will be limitations, but for single layer photos it's like using Lightroom (well, sort of).

Otherwise you can use a curve adjustment layer, which is also a non destructive way to change color balance and contrast in the scene. The advantage of this is that you can use layer masks and stack adjustment layers.


I also use camera raw on a layer most of the time for color correction. I rarely use the auto controls except if it's a damaged image that needs restoration and I will give it the auto treatment first just to see where it takes me. If that fails to get me started I will go manual.

As stated before, the auto color fills the image with solid white....that's obviously a bug of some kind.

[kirkt]

I just tried AutoColor after converting a raw file in ACR into PS and then applying AutoColor on the resulting (background) image.  It works a expected (Mac Pro, Sierra, PSCC2017).

What are your color settings in PS?

Have you tried turning off using the Graphics Processor?

kirk

[Wolfman]

I contacted Adobe and they had me turn off the Graphic Processor with no change. They ended up resetting PS preferences and that remedied the problem. Thanks for your suggestions.