Showing posts with label selective color. Show all posts
Showing posts with label selective color. Show all posts

Sunday, July 4, 2010

An addition to the Selective Color tutorial

When I wrote advising on how to change the colour of various parts of your images by using Selective Color I didn't give you the full instructions but a few people have had a try and have run into a few problems - the color is in places where it is not needed. How do you get rid of that?
Again I will demonstrate with the changing of the colour of the sky and show you the extra steps that I take. I must rush in here to remind you that there are many different ways of doing any task in Photoshop and I am not telling you the only way, just my way.
For this tutorial I am making no tweaks or sharpening at all. I do not wish to confuse by giving too many tutorials in one mail!
Step 1. Do any corrections such as cropping, transforming (correcting badly aligned verticals)and straightening the horizon etc.
Step 2. Click on the round symbol half black, half white that gives you the drop-down box for Selective Color.
Step 3. Chose the colour you wish to change - for this sky I selected white - and move the sliders to give the hue and shade you feel is best. Click OK.
Step 4. Click on the white square besides the image in the Layers Palette and from the tools panel click on the gradient tool. Change the opacity (at the top of the screen) to about 55%.
Step 5. Click in the gradient box (top left of the screen) and make sure that the gradient pattern is foreground (black) to transparent and a straight gradient - not a circular gradient or any other shape!
Step 6. On the picture drag the gradient from blow the horizon up to about halfway into the sky. The idea is to have a slightly lighter horizon - if the light and dark areas have an obvious line where they change, undo and make the drag over a larger area. Start a bit lower and finish a bit higher in the picture.
Step 7. This is a definite improvement but the highlights on the lean-to roof have also been turned blue, as have the window frames of the window on the left. From the tools palette chose the brush tool and select a hard edge. With the Opacity set to 100% paint over the buildings and foreground features (white cars) that might have been tinted.
You can see where I have painted with the brush tool and black onto the mask in the circled areas. It does not hurt to increase the brush size and paint over the entire area that is not sky.
Step 8. Flatten the image and save with a new name.
Here is a composite picture to show the before and after of this Selective Color change.
Once I have changed one colour I sometimes flatten the image and then do a Selective Color change on something else - such as greens that look rather yellow (Selecting Yellow as the colour to change) - again I will use the brush tool to paint out the yellow items that I do not wish to colour change - such as clothing, signs, vehicles and so on.
Flatten the image once the colour change has been done and then (and only after all other tweaks have been done) apply Sharpening.
AJ

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Next step with Selective Color

Continuing on from yesterday's tutorial on using Selective Color - I would like to show you how to determine just what is affected by the colour change.
We shall take the same photo we used yesterday but this time I am going to change the sky. The lower left of the picture is really over exposed and white and I would like this to be changed to blue.
To begin with, duplicate the layer and click on the round button that is half black, half white. Select white as the colour to be changed and slide the colour sliders and the black slider to change the white to match the blue at the top of the picture.
You will notice in the layers palette that there is a white box beside the Selective Color symbol. This is a "reveal all" mask.
Click on the white box.
Now select a soft edged brush and with black as the foreground colour paint away the blue that is in the wrong places - in my picture the white of the branches and tips of the leaves has also been changed to blue. You will need to use the magnifier to get in very close so that you can be accurate in your brushwork. Zoom in and take care as you paint - it required a very small brush to remove blue from the tips of the green leaves and I would not even have seen that it needed doing until I zoomed in.
Zoom out and enlarge the brush and paint over the upper part of the sky and tree where the original colour was stronger. You can see on the tiny image of the mask where the brush has been worked (on the picture above).
Here are the before and after pictures.
The left hand picture has the white in the sky and the one on the right has more colour. Too much colour would be artificial, so try not to be heavy handed!
AJ