There is some way to use the eyedropper in CS4 to match the color balance of one image to another. I shot this horse show a few weeks ago under gas lamps which were constantly changing their color balance. I need to balance the color in this two images for them to use for an ad. The first one is pretty close. The second one looks like a completely different horse. I can't just save the curves from the first one because the light has completely changed for the second one.

Seems there is some way to take a sample from the first, say from the sand or the horse's coat, and then match it in the second. does this make sense?

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On my monitor, which is calibrated, the color balance looks off in both of these images. The difference in the "color balance" may also be caused by your exposure. Most arena lighting is fluorescent and has "cycles" that can mess with exposure. The second image looks almost overexposed causing a color cast issue. These are tricky to get the images alike. Work with your exposure in PP to get the images close to one another and then work with the color temp. First image appears to have a megenta cast while the second appears greenish. Hope this helps and good luck.

perhaps try to adjust in LAB color space.

Looking at these images, I would say that you attempted to white balance them using a white part of the image that was clipping in one of the RGB channels. Go back and select two new neutral points where there is no danger of clipping and try to use the same material/point when you white balance each image. That should get you much closer. If further adjustment is needed, than put a color sampler point on the parts of the image that you are trying to match in both images. Create a curves adjustment layer in the image you want to match and then adjust the individual RGB channels to tweak the color while watching your color sampler points. Make sure that you start the process with the exposures balanced between the images.

Another approach ... that is very quick and easy is to use the image adjustment command "Match Color ...". One click, but gives you less control over the final results.

Actually, I should have mentioned that Color Match is a very powerful adjustment where you can use selections in the two images to produce very good matches ... it is a lot more than the one click method I mentioned above. It is good for ads, catalogs and other applications where you want good matches. Very good for matching skin tones in images.