All current photo-editors provide some form of automatic contrast and color adjustment. There is nothing wrong with using these automated features. They are quite handy, and you may find they provide a quick and easy way to enhance your pictures. A short lesson on using these automated features is included later in the guide.

But because the intention of this guide it to provide you with a certain level of understanding about digital photography in general and, in this instance, about how to use a photo-editor, we think it's important that you understand how the contrast and color correction processes work.

To that end, the lessons on exposure correction and color correction ask you to learn the manual methods of enhancements first. These methods are not complicated, and the presentations and demonstrations are short and easy to follow.

While automatic correction works well most of the time, certain pictures will not respond to auto-correction. In such cases, a knowledge of the underlying correction functions will prove invaluable.