IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
(MUSIC).
Hello, I'm Tim Grey.
| | 00:05 |
If you're like many photographers, you've
probably struggled from time to time with
| | 00:09 |
color corrections for your photos.
At times, you may have even felt that you
| | 00:13 |
just don't have a good eye for color.
This course will address those issues and
| | 00:17 |
more, to help improve your skills and
confidence in applying accurate color corrections.
| | 00:22 |
I'll start by presenting some of the basic
concepts related to your system
| | 00:26 |
configuration and color in general,
including some great methods for
| | 00:29 |
evaluating the color in your photos.
Next, we'll take a look at some of the
| | 00:33 |
basic techniques for color adjustments,
including establishing accurate color in a
| | 00:37 |
RAW conversion.
Using automatic adjustments, taking
| | 00:40 |
advantage of the incredible vibrance
adjustment, applying a colour tint or
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removing a colour cast and more.
We'll then dive in into focused colour
| | 00:48 |
corrections, meaning colour corrections
that affect a specific area of a photo.
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You'll see how to shift the color balance
for a specific range of colors, how to
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tone down problem colors, how to create
neutral highlight and shadow values, how
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to improve color in skin tones and much
much more.
| | 01:05 |
By the end of this course you'll have the
knowledge and confidence you need to apply
| | 01:08 |
accurate and effective color corrections
to your photos.
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Let's get started.
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1. Configuration ConsiderationsColor space and bit depth| 00:02 |
Color can obviously be a critical element
to any photographic image.
| | 00:06 |
Well, at least images that are captured in
color and that you don't intend to convert
| | 00:09 |
to black and white.
And the color settings and other options
| | 00:12 |
that you utilize in Photoshop, can
actually have a somewhat significant
| | 00:16 |
impact on the overall quality of the color
in your images.
| | 00:20 |
Specifically, we can affect things such as
the total range of colors and the
| | 00:24 |
smoothness of gradations between various
color values.
| | 00:29 |
Let's take a look first off at color
settings.
| | 00:31 |
The primary affect of the color settings
options in Photoshop, are to determine the
| | 00:35 |
total range of colors that are available
by default in our images.
| | 00:40 |
Let's take a look at the color settings
dialog, I'll go to the Edit menu and then
| | 00:44 |
choose Color Settings and that will bring
up the Color Settings dialog.
| | 00:49 |
There are many options available here and
in fact if I click the More Option button,
| | 00:52 |
we'll get even more options available.
But most of these you don't have to worry
| | 00:57 |
about too much.
In fact, there are just a few settings
| | 01:00 |
that you'll want to pay attention to.
The first of those is the working space
| | 01:05 |
for RGB.
In most cases, you'll be working in the
| | 01:08 |
RGB color space.
In other words, red, green and blue, which
| | 01:12 |
you can think of as the color space that
relates to light.
| | 01:16 |
And of course, since as photographers
we're capturing light, that makes a lot of
| | 01:20 |
sense in terms of working with our images.
CMYK is, generally speaking, intended for printing.
| | 01:26 |
Gray is essentially black and white, but
we can still work in RGB for our black and
| | 01:30 |
white images.
And Spot is sort of a special color space
| | 01:35 |
aimed, once again, primarily at the print
industry.
| | 01:39 |
So, while there are many options here, we
really only need to focus on RGB, at least
| | 01:42 |
under most circumstances.
And for the RGB working space, we have a
| | 01:47 |
variety of options available.
The key ones that we'll want to consider
| | 01:51 |
are Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, and sRGB.
Each of these defines a total range of
| | 01:57 |
possible colors.
We have a fixed number of colors available
| | 02:03 |
for an image based on the bit depth of
that image.
| | 02:06 |
So, the color space is not determining how
many colors, but rather which specific colors.
| | 02:11 |
As an overly simplistic example, let's
assume we only had eight colors available.
| | 02:17 |
But, in one case, those eight colors were
shades of gray and in the other case they
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were various colors of the rainbow.
Obviously, we would be able to produce
| | 02:25 |
very different images.
In one case, only black and white images
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and in the other, color images.
And you can think of the color space as
| | 02:34 |
being very similar to that concept, it's
just representing a lot more colors.
| | 02:39 |
Even for an eight bit per channel image
there are almost 16.8 million colors available.
| | 02:44 |
But, we still need to choose which
specific range of colors, will be
| | 02:47 |
available while we're working on our
images.
| | 02:50 |
The sRGB color space is the smallest of
the three that you would want to consider,
| | 02:54 |
but it is appropriate for certain work
flows.
| | 02:57 |
For example, if you'll only be sharing
your images online and never printing
| | 03:01 |
them, the sRGB color space is excellent.
And there even some printing workflows
| | 03:06 |
when sRGB color space is utilized.
And so, for some photographers there may
| | 03:10 |
be no benefit to choosing a color space
that is larger then sRGB.
| | 03:15 |
However, if you will be printing images
yourself or sending images to a commercial
| | 03:19 |
printer, then you'll probably want to have
a larger color space.
| | 03:23 |
Because, the sRGB color space does not
encompass all of the colors that can be printed.
| | 03:28 |
And so, in those cases when you are going
to be doing a lot of printing, it may be
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better to work in the Adobe RGB color
space.
| | 03:35 |
This is a slightly larger color space,
generally speaking, than the sRGB color
| | 03:39 |
space, and it enables you to print a
slightly wider range of colors.
| | 03:44 |
Specifically, you'll be able to achieve
colors with a bit more saturation,
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compared to the sRGB color space.
And, if you really want to maximize the
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potential of your images, you can choose
the ProPhoto RGB color space.
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This color space is so huge, that it
actually includes colors that can't be
| | 04:00 |
seen, fake colors, imaginary colors, you
might say.
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In fact, the ProPhoto RGB color space is
significantly larger than the display
| | 04:09 |
capabilities of most monitors and of most
printers.
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Of course, that might lead you to assume
that the ProPhoto RGB color space is more
| | 04:17 |
than you need, and that's sort of true.
But, it also helps to ensure that in the
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future, you'll have a little bit better
potential.
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In other words, if you prepare images for
today's printers using the Adobe RGB color space.
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In the future, when better printers come
out with even better capabilities in terms
| | 04:35 |
of saturation for example, you'll still be
limited by the Adobe RGB color space.
| | 04:40 |
You won't have the colors that would have
been possible.
| | 04:43 |
So, in essence, using the ProPhoto RGB
color space is future proofing your images.
| | 04:48 |
So, generally speaking, I would recommend
the ProPhoto RGB color space but, that's
| | 04:52 |
not to say that you can't achieve great
results with the other options that are
| | 04:56 |
available as well.
In this case, I'll go ahead an establish
| | 05:00 |
the ProPhoto RGB color space as my default
working space.
| | 05:04 |
Which means that, by default, that's the
color space that I'll be working with.
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So, by default, I'll have a huge range of
colors available.
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The only caveat is that if you're going to
work in the ProPhoto RGB color space, you
| | 05:13 |
should only work in 16 bit per channel
mode.
| | 05:16 |
We'll take a look at those bit depths in
just a moment.
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But first, let's take a look at color
management policies.
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I've established the ProPhoto RGB color
space as my working space, but I may open
| | 05:27 |
images that are set to a different color
space, that have a different embedded profile.
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And so, then the question is, how shall I
deal with those mismatches?
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That's the subject of the pop up under
color management policies.
| | 05:40 |
I only need to concern myself with RGB of
course, since I'm only working with RGB images.
| | 05:45 |
My options are off, which I never
recommend using, to preserve the embedded profiles.
| | 05:50 |
Which is appropriate if you will be
receiving images from others and want to
| | 05:53 |
maintain the profiles that they've
established or convert to working RGB.
| | 05:58 |
Generally speaking, I would say that if
you've established a working space that
| | 06:02 |
you feel is most appropriate for your work
flow, you probably want to convert images
| | 06:05 |
into that color space.
And, so, in most cases, I would choose,
| | 06:09 |
Convert to Working RGB.
And then you can specify whether you want
| | 06:13 |
Photoshop to just automatically convert,
or if you want Photoshop to ask you, if
| | 06:17 |
you really do want to convert from one
color space to another.
| | 06:22 |
If you want Photoshop to ask, you can
simply turn on these three check boxes.
| | 06:26 |
But I prefer to have Photoshop just
automatically convert on my behalf, and
| | 06:30 |
so, I'll leave those check boxes
unchecked.
| | 06:33 |
The rest of these settings, you can leave
at their default values.
| | 06:36 |
There's really no need for most
photographers to address any of these
| | 06:39 |
issues, the defaults will work just fine.
So, at that point you can simply click the
| | 06:44 |
OK button in order to apply those changes
to the color settings.
| | 06:49 |
Finally, let's take a look at bit depth.
While the color space determines the range
| | 06:53 |
of colors that are available, the bit
depth determines the overall number of
| | 06:57 |
color that are available.
In the eight bit per channel mode, we have
| | 07:02 |
a grand total of almost 16.8 million
colors available and that is a lot.
| | 07:08 |
In fact, that's right about the number of
colors that it is estimated that the
| | 07:11 |
typical person is able to discern.
But, you can also work in 16 bit per
| | 07:16 |
channel mode.
And in the 16 bit per channel mode, you
| | 07:20 |
have over 281 trillion colors available.
That's a huge number of colors, and it's
| | 07:26 |
way beyond what any monitor or printer can
reproduce, in terms of the total number of
| | 07:31 |
colors available.
So, if 16 bit per channel represents far
| | 07:36 |
more colors than you can really use, why
would you bother working in 16 bit mode at all?
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The answer is posterization.
Every change you apply to an image causes
| | 07:47 |
some degree of loss of detail or
information.
| | 07:51 |
And, with 16 bit per channel mode, you
simply have more information so that when
| | 07:55 |
you lose a little bit, it doesn't hurt so
much.
| | 07:58 |
When you lose too much information, in
other words when you've adjusted an image
| | 08:02 |
too strongly in the 8 bit per channel
mode, you risk posterization, or the loss
| | 08:06 |
of smooth gradations of tone and color in
an image.
| | 08:10 |
Let's take a look at what that looks like.
I'm going to add a Posterize adjustment
| | 08:14 |
layer so we can simulate the effect of
posterization, and here you see an extreme
| | 08:18 |
version of posterization.
There are very harsh transitions between
| | 08:23 |
the various tones and colors in the image.
I'll increase the Levels value here and
| | 08:28 |
then I'll take it downward a little bit
slowly and we can see, that there is no
| | 08:32 |
change, no change, no change.
We have to bring this value down quite a
| | 08:38 |
lot, before we start to see any problems.
And then even initially the effect is a
| | 08:43 |
little bit subtle.
You might notice in the cloud at the top
| | 08:46 |
right for example, that we are starting to
see some banding.
| | 08:49 |
And as I reduce the value more and more
that banding becomes more significant.
| | 08:54 |
In other words, the risk of posterization
is not all that significant.
| | 08:59 |
If your working an 8 bit per channel mode
and applying relatively modest
| | 09:03 |
adjustments, your not likely to see any
posterization in you images.
| | 09:07 |
But, if you're working in the 16 bit per
channel mode, you can pretty well rest
| | 09:11 |
assured that you will not experience any
posterization, unless you are applying
| | 09:15 |
incredibly extreme adjustments.
It's important to keep in mind that,
| | 09:21 |
working in 16 bit per channel mode, is not
beneficial unless you actually have high
| | 09:25 |
bit data.
So, if you're capturing in your camera's
| | 09:29 |
Raw Capture mode, for example, you would
want to convert those Raw captures at 16
| | 09:32 |
bits per channel.
In order to ensure that you're able to
| | 09:36 |
continue working in 16 bit per channel and
therefore, get the benefits of that higher
| | 09:40 |
bit depth.
The key is to determine what makes the
| | 09:44 |
most sense, based on your particular
workflow, in terms of the bit depth.
| | 09:48 |
8 bits per channel versus 16 bits per
channel as well as the particular color
| | 09:51 |
space that you'll be using.
But, those decisions can have a somewhat
| | 09:55 |
significant impact on the results you're
able to achieve with your images.
| | 10:00 |
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| Color settings for raw conversion| 00:02 |
Most of the settings related to color in
Photoshop are found within the color
| | 00:05 |
settings dialogue or some within the
preferences dialogue within Photoshop.
| | 00:10 |
But if you're working with raw captures,
then you're going to be using Adobe Camera
| | 00:14 |
Raw to process those raw captures, and
that means that you'll need to take into
| | 00:17 |
account the color settings within Adobe
Camera Raw.
| | 00:21 |
Let's take a look at those settings.
I'll start off by opening a raw capture,
| | 00:25 |
so I'll choose File > Open, select a raw
image, and then click Open in the open dialogue.
| | 00:30 |
That will bring up Adobe Camera Raw.
And down at the bottom of the dialog,
| | 00:34 |
you'll see a summary of the workflow
options.
| | 00:37 |
And that includes the color space, as well
as the bit depth.
| | 00:41 |
And those are the key settings that we're
going to take a look at here.
| | 00:43 |
To adjust those settings, you can simply
click on the link represented by that text.
| | 00:48 |
And that will bring up the Workflow
Options dialog.
| | 00:51 |
There we can choose a specific color
space, as well as bit depth.
| | 00:56 |
Let's start off with bit depth.
The bit depth actually determines the
| | 00:59 |
total number of colors that are available
as your working within your images.
| | 01:04 |
With an eight bit per channel image there
are a total of just shy of 16.8 million
| | 01:08 |
colors available.
That's a lot of colors, in fact, it
| | 01:11 |
approximately matches the capabilities of
the human visual system so in most cases
| | 01:15 |
that will work out great for our
photographic image.
| | 01:19 |
But if you're going to apply relatively
strong adjustments to your image, it can
| | 01:23 |
be beneficial to work in the 16 bit per
channel mode.
| | 01:26 |
That provides, literally, hundreds of
trillions of possible color values, and so
| | 01:31 |
even with very strong adjustments, you're
not likely to run into any posterization,
| | 01:35 |
the loss of smooth gradations of tone and
color in your images.
| | 01:41 |
So we'll start off by choosing 16 bits per
channel in most cases then we can consider
| | 01:45 |
the color space, this defines the overall
range of colors.
| | 01:50 |
In other words, the overall color gamut
that defines which colors are actually
| | 01:54 |
available, so that bit depth determines
how many colors there are.
| | 01:58 |
But the color space determines which
colors are available.
| | 02:01 |
The largest color space is ProPhoto RGB,
and that's generally the safest bet.
| | 02:07 |
The only catch is that if you're working
in ProPhoto RGB, you must be working in a
| | 02:10 |
16-bit per channel mode.
If that makes you at all nervous, or if
| | 02:14 |
you're not always going to be working in
the 16 bit per channel mode then you can
| | 02:18 |
choose adobe RGB.
This is a great color space for printing,
| | 02:22 |
and it's a good general purpose color
space, for most photographs.
| | 02:26 |
For some photographers though SRGB will be
the best choice.
| | 02:29 |
This is the smallest color space out of
the three that I recommend considering.
| | 02:34 |
But it is also the color space used by a
variety of different workflows.
| | 02:38 |
Many commercial printing operations, for
example, utilize an sRGB-based Workflow.
| | 02:43 |
And so, if your images are printed by such
a printer, you'll want to use sRGB.
| | 02:48 |
But, in general, my preference is to use
the largest color space available with as
| | 02:51 |
many colors as possible available.
And so I utilize ProPhoto RGB with a 16
| | 02:56 |
bit per channel bit depth.
But you may have a reason to choose
| | 03:00 |
different options whatever those settings
may be, once you've establish them you can
| | 03:03 |
click the OK button in order to apply
those changes to your workflow options.
| | 03:08 |
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| The importance of calibration| 00:02 |
I'd be the first to admit that accurate
color is a somewhat relative concept.
| | 00:06 |
Photography is an art form, after all.
And so we can exercise a certain degree of
| | 00:11 |
artistic license in interpreting the
colors in our images.
| | 00:15 |
But even though we might not always
present colors in a completely accurate
| | 00:19 |
way relative to how those colors looked
when we photographed them.
| | 00:24 |
We do want to be sure that the image we
see is being presented accurately.
| | 00:28 |
And that requires monitor calibration.
Monitor calibration is a process of
| | 00:34 |
adjusting our display to help ensure that
the colors are being presented as
| | 00:38 |
accurately as possible.
And that we're taking full advantage of
| | 00:42 |
the capabilities of our display.
There are two basic processes involved
| | 00:47 |
with what we refer to as monitor
calibration.
| | 00:50 |
The first step is monitor calibration.
And that's where we actually change the
| | 00:54 |
settings for the display to get the
display as close as possible to
| | 00:58 |
established standards.
The second component is building a profile.
| | 01:04 |
And that provides information for our
computer operating system to use in order
| | 01:08 |
to adjust the display to ensure that it is
presented as accurately as possible.
| | 01:14 |
Let's assume for a moment that this was
the image that you downloaded from your camera.
| | 01:18 |
It doesn't take long to recognize that
these colors are wildly off.
| | 01:23 |
As a result you might apply an adjustment
to try to correct the color.
| | 01:27 |
I'll go ahead and add a Hue saturation
adjustment layer for example.
| | 01:30 |
And then I'll shift the hue in an effort
to try to find more accurate colors and
| | 01:35 |
right about there, we find an accurate
color.
| | 01:39 |
Or what seems to me at least, to be a
accurate color.
| | 01:42 |
We have orange carrots and red tomatoes
etc.
| | 01:45 |
But here's the problem in this case
granted a simulated case the presentation
| | 01:50 |
of the image was actually not accurate I'm
making adjustments to my image assuming
| | 01:55 |
that this display.
Is accurate.
| | 01:59 |
In this case, I'm simulating an inaccurate
display using another adjustment layer,
| | 02:04 |
but the idea is, if our monitor is not
properly adjusted, what we see is not
| | 02:08 |
necessarily accurate, and so the
adjustments we apply, even though they
| | 02:11 |
result in what we consider to be an
accurate result, Are not dependable adjustments.
| | 02:19 |
In this case, for example, of course I'm
using very exaggerated effects, but if we
| | 02:23 |
assume that this other adjustment layer
really was a bad monitor calibration And
| | 02:28 |
then we finally do calibrate the monitor
properly, what do you suppose my at the
| | 02:32 |
moment good-looking image is really going
to look like?
| | 02:38 |
It will look like this.
In other words, I've made adjustments
| | 02:41 |
based on an inaccurate view of the image,
and therefore, the adjustments I've
| | 02:45 |
applied are actually inaccurate.
And so when I print the image I'm not
| | 02:50 |
going to get anything close to what I'm
expecting.
| | 02:53 |
Again, this is an exaggerated simulation
of the effect.
| | 02:57 |
Normally, the monitor display would look
pretty accurate, but it might be off just
| | 03:01 |
enough to make a difference in the print,
and I'm sure we've all had the experience
| | 03:04 |
of making a print that doesn't seem to
quite match what we see on the display.
| | 03:11 |
And so all of that underscores the
importance of calibrating and profiling
| | 03:15 |
your monitor display, and preferrably,
utilizing a package that includes a device
| | 03:19 |
that actually measures the color values
and tonal values on your display.
| | 03:25 |
That device is called a colorimeter, and
most monitor calibration packages will
| | 03:29 |
include both a colorimeter and the
software that enables you to put that
| | 03:33 |
colorimeter to use.
I strongly encourage you to calibrate and
| | 03:38 |
profile your monitor display, so that the
adjustments you will be applying, will be
| | 03:41 |
based on an accurate view.
And therefore you will be able to get
| | 03:45 |
predictable and accurate results when
you're printing or sharing your images.
| | 03:50 |
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2. Understanding and Evaluating ColorAn intro to RGB| 00:02 |
As you're working to optimize your
photographic images, you'll typically be
| | 00:05 |
working in the RGB color space.
In other words, you'll be utilizing red,
| | 00:10 |
green and blue pixel values in order to
adjust the overall appearance of the
| | 00:13 |
colors in your image.
It can therefore be very helpful to have a
| | 00:19 |
good understanding of what exactly the RGB
color space represents.
| | 00:24 |
In other words, when we're working with an
RGB image, what are we really doing?
| | 00:27 |
Well red, green and blue are the colors
that we typically utilize as the primary
| | 00:32 |
colors for light in color photography.
In other words we're essentially recording
| | 00:37 |
for each pixel how much red light was
there.
| | 00:40 |
How much green light was there and how
much blue light was there.
| | 00:43 |
The result is a specific color value.
Let's assume we have three light sources,
| | 00:49 |
those are represented here as a red light,
a green light and a blue light.
| | 00:54 |
So these individual spots of light
represent the colors that we might mix to
| | 00:58 |
create a color value for a specific pixel.
Each light, of course, only has a single color.
| | 01:04 |
The red light can only be red, the green
light can only be green, and the blue
| | 01:07 |
light can only be blue.
But we can combine the light from these
| | 01:11 |
three sources to create any color of the
rainbow.
| | 01:15 |
We can accomplish that by mixing the
lights at different intensities.
| | 01:20 |
For example, I can reduce the opacity for
my red layer here, representing the red light.
| | 01:26 |
And that will reduce the intensity of that
red.
| | 01:29 |
At a 0% opacity, we're adding no red light
to the equation.
| | 01:34 |
And so we don't see red at all at the
moment.
| | 01:36 |
If I increase that opacity I'm increasing
the intensity of that red, in other words
| | 01:40 |
I'm determining how much light is going to
be projected by that red light source.
| | 01:46 |
I'll go and leave that value at its
maximum 100% so we now have red green and
| | 01:50 |
blue at maximum intensity.
Things get more interesting, though, when
| | 01:56 |
we combine the lights.
So I'll use the Move tool and turn on the
| | 02:00 |
Auto-Select options so that I can simply
click and drag on any of these objects in
| | 02:04 |
order to move them around, and then I'll
take my red light source and move it
| | 02:07 |
around so that it overlaps with the green
light source.
| | 02:13 |
And the result is yellow.
When we combine red light and green light
| | 02:17 |
both at maximum intensity, we get yellow.
Similarly, I can move the blue light.
| | 02:23 |
I'll go ahead and drag this over to the
left.
| | 02:25 |
And when we overlap with green, we get
cyan or what we might think of as blue green.
| | 02:31 |
And that's because we're combining blue
light and green light, the result Is Cyan.
| | 02:37 |
And so in each case, we're adding light to
the equation.
| | 02:40 |
We're overlapping two light sources, and
so we have more light.
| | 02:44 |
As a result, the colors that we're getting
are brighter.
| | 02:47 |
So cyan, for example, is brighter than
green or blue because it has twice as much light.
| | 02:53 |
If we're talking about the original light
sources at full intensity.
| | 02:57 |
And speaking of combining light sources,
we can actually combine all three.
| | 03:01 |
And if we take all three at full
intensity, we'll end up with white light.
| | 03:08 |
In the process, you can see that we've
also overlapped the red and blue light
| | 03:12 |
sources, and that results in magenta.
If your familar with printing you might be
| | 03:17 |
aware that for printing we deal with inks
that are cyan magenta and yellow.
| | 03:24 |
Those are the subtractive primary colors,
red green and blue are the additive
| | 03:28 |
primary colors.
And the reason for that is that in the RGB
| | 03:31 |
color space, we're adding lights to the
equation.
| | 03:34 |
Where as with inks we're subtracting
light.
| | 03:37 |
Because ink reflects some light, but
absorbs other light.
| | 03:41 |
And, so you can see the relationship
between CMYK, cyan, magenta, yellow, and
| | 03:46 |
black, for ink and RGB for red, green,
blue for light.
| | 03:51 |
And of course, when we're working with
photographic images, we are working with light.
| | 03:55 |
And so the RGB Color space makes sense.
And of course once again I can adjust the
| | 04:00 |
intensity of that light source to get a
variety of different color values.
| | 04:05 |
So I'll go ahead and tone down the red
light for example.
| | 04:07 |
And you can see how that changes, in this
case, the magenta and yellow as well as
| | 04:11 |
that white value.
Now it's a brighter shade of cyan because
| | 04:16 |
it's mostly cyan, but we've added a little
bit more light to brighten it up.
| | 04:21 |
And just as we've seen here, by mixing and
matching different color values and
| | 04:25 |
adjusting the intensities for each of
them, so are the values for individual
| | 04:29 |
pixels created in our images.
And as we apply adjustments, all we're
| | 04:35 |
really doing is changing the ratios of
red, green and blue.
| | 04:39 |
The amount of light of each of those
colors that we're combining for each pixel
| | 04:43 |
value, we might be lowering the value for
all three.
| | 04:47 |
Three so that we're darkening a pixel, or
increasing the value for all three so that
| | 04:50 |
we're brightening a pixel, or shifting the
balance so that we're seeing a different
| | 04:54 |
color for that pixel.
But underlying all of it, is RGB.
| | 05:00 |
Red green and blue values combining to
create all of the colors we see in our
| | 05:04 |
digital photos.
| | 05:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Color models and the color picker| 00:02 |
As your working to optimize the color in
your photograph.
| | 00:05 |
Of course you'll wan't to have a good
understanding of color to begin with.
| | 00:08 |
And, one way to understand how Photoshop
thinks about color, so to speak, is to
| | 00:12 |
evaluate the options that are available.
In the color picker.
| | 00:17 |
Let's take a look at the color picker and
get a sense of the various ways that we
| | 00:20 |
could communicate color in the context of
a digital image.
| | 00:25 |
To bring up the color picker, I'll simply
click on the color swatch for the
| | 00:28 |
foreground color, that's currently set to
black but I can change that color to any
| | 00:32 |
color I'd like, utilizing the color
picker.
| | 00:36 |
So I'll click on that color swatch, and
the color picker dialog appears.
| | 00:40 |
You can see that the current color, as
shown on the gradient here is black.
| | 00:44 |
There's a small circle there down at the
bottom left corner, part of it is cut off
| | 00:48 |
of course and that reflects the black
color that is currently active as the
| | 00:51 |
foreground color.
You'll also see that reflected up toward
| | 00:57 |
the top right.
We have the current color swatch, in other
| | 01:00 |
words the color as it is currently
established in Photoshop and then above it
| | 01:03 |
the new color swatch, at the moment
they're exactly the same because I haven't
| | 01:06 |
selected a different color yet.
But the bottom right portion of the color
| | 01:12 |
picker reflects the various color models
that Photoshop utilizes to describe color.
| | 01:16 |
We'll start off with the H, S, B color
model, or Hue, Saturation and Brightness.
| | 01:22 |
Here, we start off by describing the hue
or the basic color.
| | 01:27 |
Specifically, that is the number of
degrees around the color wheel where red
| | 01:31 |
represents zero or the top of the color
wheel you might say, and within the color
| | 01:36 |
picker, that color wheel is actually
spread out and shown in a linear fashion.
| | 01:43 |
In other words instead of a circular
wheel, we have a straight line gradient
| | 01:47 |
that ranges from red up at the top, down
through magenta, and blue, cyan, green,
| | 01:51 |
yellow, and then finally red once again
down at the bottom.
| | 01:57 |
Because this is reflective of the color
wheel.
| | 01:59 |
In other words, it is a circle.
It's just been unrolled, you might say.
| | 02:03 |
So the hue is the basic color.
Saturation is the intensity or purity of
| | 02:08 |
that color.
On the larger gradient here, the
| | 02:12 |
saturation is presented as the left to
right axis, or the x axis.
| | 02:17 |
So to the left is less saturated.
And to the right is more saturated.
| | 02:21 |
But the smaller gradient here, is simply
reflecting the currently selected option.
| | 02:26 |
That happens to be the H value, or hue at
the moment.
| | 02:30 |
But I can also switch to saturation.
So now we can see the intensity of color
| | 02:34 |
on this single radiant.
And then finally we have the brightness value.
| | 02:39 |
I'll go ahead and set that as the value
for the gradient here.
| | 02:43 |
And then we can see that as we increase
brightness, obviously we get closer to white.
| | 02:48 |
So typically you would select a basic
color for example blue here.
| | 02:52 |
And that will define the hue and then we
can adjust the saturation and the
| | 02:56 |
brightness using the larger gradient.
The two axis gradient and so you can see
| | 03:01 |
now I've selected a particular hue and a
particular saturation and brightness value.
| | 03:06 |
And that happens to reflect a bluish,
almost slightly purple color.
| | 03:11 |
But in addition to the HSB model, which is
used in various places throughout
| | 03:14 |
Photoshop, we can, of course, use the RGB
color model.
| | 03:18 |
And the RGB color model sort of underlies
all of the colors that we're actually adjusting.
| | 03:23 |
In other words, the channels that we use
in an RGB image reflect red, green and
| | 03:27 |
blue light and we can see those values
right here.
| | 03:32 |
So, for example, if I click in the image
in order to sample a particular color, I
| | 03:35 |
can then evaluate the RGB values for that
color.
| | 03:39 |
So in this case, we have a red value of
240, a green value of 177, and a blue
| | 03:45 |
value of 1.
Well, what does that actually mean?
| | 03:50 |
The RGB values range from 0 to 255.
In other words, a total of 256 possible
| | 03:56 |
values for each channel.
That's for an 8 bit per channel image.
| | 04:00 |
And those combine to produce a total of
almost 16.8 million possible color values.
| | 04:07 |
This specific color value has a lot of
red.
| | 04:11 |
We're very close to the maximum of 255.
A fair amount of green, and no blue, or
| | 04:16 |
almost no blue.
We're down at one and the minimum value is zero.
| | 04:21 |
An that means of course that we could
expect this color to appear, yellowish an
| | 04:25 |
maybe slightly orangish, which of course
is exactly what we see in the image.
| | 04:30 |
For the red, green and blue options here
it's not quite as useful to look at the
| | 04:34 |
red, green and blue method of presenting
the information.
| | 04:39 |
Usually we tend to think a little more
clearly about color with the hue
| | 04:42 |
saturation and brightness model.
But the point is that we can use the RGB
| | 04:48 |
options for the gradients as well.
We can also describe color based on the
| | 04:53 |
lab color model.
And the lab color model or LAB reflects
| | 04:58 |
the way our human visual system actually
perceives colors.
| | 05:03 |
In other words, we have an L value, or
luminance, which relates to the overall
| | 05:07 |
brightness of a particular color value, as
well as A and B channels.
| | 05:12 |
The A channel reflects the shift between
green and red, whereas the B channel
| | 05:16 |
reflects the differences between blue and
yellow.
| | 05:21 |
And so we can describe a color based on
its luminance, or how bright it is, as
| | 05:25 |
well as how close to green versus red it
is and how close to blue versus yellow it
| | 05:30 |
may be.
While the lab color model makes perfect
| | 05:34 |
sense in the context of human vision, for
most photographers it's not the most
| | 05:38 |
intuitive colors space and so it's one
your not likely to use all that often.
| | 05:44 |
Although it is worth noting that the lab
color model is exactly what Photoshop is
| | 05:48 |
using in the background.
Finally, we have CMYK values or cyan,
| | 05:52 |
magenta, yellow, and black.
And these relate to the amounts of ink,
| | 05:56 |
literally percentages of each color of
ink, that need to be combined on paper to
| | 06:00 |
produce the specific color that we've
selected.
| | 06:04 |
And that is very particular to the
printer, ink, and paper combination that
| | 06:07 |
we're using for printing.
And that means that these values are
| | 06:12 |
really only useful if we've established a
specific CMYK working space.
| | 06:16 |
So that that profile will be used to
determine how these numbers are calculated.
| | 06:21 |
So we can certainly use the color picker
to select colors within an image.
| | 06:24 |
For example, if I need to paint with a
specific color to clean up a portion of
| | 06:28 |
the image, the color picker is a great
solution.
| | 06:31 |
Especially if we want to fine tune those
colors just a little bit.
| | 06:35 |
But by exploring the color picker you can
also get a much better sense of color in
| | 06:41 |
general and specifically the ways color
are communicated and calculated within Photoshop.
| | 06:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wild swings of color balance| 00:02 |
When I'm talking to photographers about
adjusting the color in their photographic
| | 00:05 |
images, one of the things I hear very
frequently is that they just don't have a
| | 00:09 |
good eye for color, and so when they're
looking at the image, they can't
| | 00:12 |
necessarily determine which way they
should shift the color balance.
| | 00:18 |
And even as they're adjusting color
balance, they may have a difficult time
| | 00:21 |
evaluating the results and determining
where they should actually settle on in
| | 00:25 |
terms of that adjustment.
If you've ever felt this way, I have a
| | 00:29 |
recommendation that might help you sort of
train your brain to better evaluate color
| | 00:33 |
and get a better sense of where you should
leave your adjustments for color.
| | 00:38 |
And that is to perform wild swings with
the color balance adjustment.
| | 00:43 |
Let me show you what I mean.
I'll start off by adding a color balance adjustment.
| | 00:47 |
So down at the bottom of the Layers panel,
I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer button.
| | 00:52 |
The half black, half white circle icon.
And then I'll choose Color Balance from
| | 00:56 |
the pop up menu that appears.
That will add a color balance adjustment
| | 01:00 |
layer on the layers panel, and it will
also present the color balance adjustments
| | 01:03 |
on the properties panel.
And here, of course, we can shift between
| | 01:08 |
cyan and red, magenta and green, and
yellow and blue, and those are opposite colors.
| | 01:14 |
Red is the opposite of cyan, for example.
And so, as we're shifting color in our
| | 01:18 |
images, we're essentially just shifting
along those axis.
| | 01:21 |
And of course if you look at the photo you
might say, well gosh I don't know which
| | 01:25 |
way I should shift the color.
I don't even know which slider I should
| | 01:29 |
start with.
And that's when the wild swings of the
| | 01:32 |
sliders can really be helpful.
Number 1, it will help you get a better
| | 01:37 |
sense of where you should leave that
adjustment.
| | 01:40 |
We know that this looks wrong for example,
that's way too much cyan.
| | 01:43 |
And this looks wrong as well, that's way
too red.
| | 01:46 |
But by swinging through those extremes,
you're getting a better sense of where the
| | 01:50 |
slider should not be, and then you can
start gradually.
| | 01:54 |
Reducing the range that you're swinging
through and find the spot where the color
| | 01:59 |
seems to be reasonably accurate.
You can then continue with the other
| | 02:03 |
sliders, taking the magenta green slider
all the way to green, for example, then
| | 02:07 |
all the way to magenta, and continuing to
swing back and forth a little bit wildly,
| | 02:11 |
but gradually settling on a value that
seems to be appropriate for the image.
| | 02:18 |
In the process, you're also sort of
training your brain to recognize the
| | 02:22 |
effect of various colors.
You'll get a better sense of what a strong
| | 02:26 |
yellow color cast looks like in a variety
of different colors.
| | 02:29 |
In this case, in the, sort of, brownish
colors of the Eiffel tower, or the cyan to
| | 02:33 |
blue values of the sky.
Or even the relatively neutral values in
| | 02:37 |
the clouds.
And you'll learn to recognize what a blue
| | 02:40 |
color cast looks like.
It's not that you're going to make a
| | 02:43 |
mental note about how different colors are
affected by different colors, but rather,
| | 02:47 |
that you'll just learn to recognize what
those things look like.
| | 02:51 |
You might not recognize for example, that
the Eiffel Tower has too much blue at the
| | 02:55 |
moment, but you'll be able to recognize
that it doesn't look quite right.
| | 02:59 |
Although, with time you'll also recognize
which color you might need to add to the
| | 03:02 |
image, in order to produce a better
result.
| | 03:05 |
So, by swinging those sliders through
their extremes, you'll be better able to
| | 03:10 |
apply an accurate adjustment.
Because you'll be better able to recognize
| | 03:14 |
where that accurate adjustment is.
And you'll also start to develop a better
| | 03:17 |
sense of color overall, which will serve
you very well as you continue working with
| | 03:21 |
color images.
| | 03:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Evaluating with a saturation boost| 00:02 |
In some cases, there may be colors hiding
in your image that you're not even aware of.
| | 00:07 |
And that's because those colors might be
relatively subtle and so, you don't
| | 00:10 |
necessarily notice them.
With time as you apply a variety of
| | 00:14 |
different color adjustments, you'll
develop an improved eye for color and
| | 00:18 |
you'll be better able to recognize when
colors are off just a little bit.
| | 00:22 |
But, what about those colors that don't
make themselves very apparent?
| | 00:27 |
Well, there's a technique you can use to
really pull out those colors, to
| | 00:30 |
exaggerate those colors so that they stand
out more obviously, and so you can get a
| | 00:34 |
better sense of the overall colors within
the image.
| | 00:38 |
And that is a strong saturation boost.
Let's take a look at how you can utilize
| | 00:42 |
this technique to evaluate color in your
images.
| | 00:45 |
I will start off by adding a Hue
Saturation adjustment layer.
| | 00:48 |
So, I'll go to the bottom of the Layers
panel and click on the half-black,
| | 00:52 |
half-white circle icon, the Add Adjustment
Layer button.
| | 00:55 |
That will bring up a popup menu where I
can select the particular type of
| | 00:59 |
adjustment I want to apply.
And in this case, I want to choose Hue Saturation.
| | 01:04 |
That will add a Hue Saturation adjustment
layer to the Layers panel, and it will
| | 01:08 |
also give me the controls on the
Properties panel for Hue Saturation.
| | 01:13 |
And all I want to do is take that
Saturation slider and drag it all the way
| | 01:16 |
to the far right.
I want to increase saturation by the
| | 01:21 |
maximum amount.
And you can see that, that gives us some
| | 01:25 |
very exaggerated colors within the image.
The overall scene is relatively warm.
| | 01:31 |
This was late in the day, and so we've got
some golden light, and therefore you can
| | 01:35 |
see lots of orange, yellow and red types
of tones.
| | 01:40 |
Of course, the terracotta roofs on the
buildings are orange by nature, and so
| | 01:43 |
that's certainly coming out a little bit
more.
| | 01:45 |
But, you can see for example, the face of
the church here has become a little bit
| | 01:49 |
more yellowish-orange, and that simply
reflects the additional color.
| | 01:53 |
It was relatively subtle.
I'll turn off the visibility for the Hue
| | 01:57 |
Saturation adjustment.
And you can see there's certainly some
| | 02:01 |
color in the face of that church but it's
relatively neutral, and so you might not
| | 02:04 |
be able to tell at a glance exactly what
colors are contained therein.
| | 02:08 |
But by applying that exaggerated boost in
saturation you can see very clearly what
| | 02:12 |
those colors are.
You'll also notice some colors you might
| | 02:16 |
not have expected.
We see lots of green off in the distance
| | 02:19 |
for example.
For the most part those are copper tops to
| | 02:22 |
various bell towers and other objects
within the scene.
| | 02:27 |
But, some of that might be unwanted green
elements as well.
| | 02:30 |
But, I think the thing that stands out the
most as perhaps a surprise color is all of
| | 02:34 |
the magenta that we're seeing in the sky.
I'll turn off the visibility once again
| | 02:39 |
for the Hue Saturation adjustment layer,
and you can see those clouds look rather neutral.
| | 02:43 |
They essentially just look like shades of
gray.
| | 02:46 |
But, turning on this adjustment once again
we can see there's quite a bit of color
| | 02:50 |
out there.
Now, the blue is not such a surprise
| | 02:53 |
because of course we're getting some of
the sky color reflected in those clouds
| | 02:56 |
but the magenta is a little bit of a
surprise.
| | 03:00 |
Well, actually, it's not that big of a
surprise after all, because it's quite
| | 03:03 |
common in a hazy scene.
Because of refraction, you'll actually end
| | 03:07 |
up with a fair amount of magenta to red
light, and that can give you that sort of
| | 03:11 |
pink cast off in the distance.
Now, of course, it was a rather subtle
| | 03:16 |
cast in this case, but it was there, and
it's good to be aware of these various
| | 03:19 |
issues in the image, so that you can pay
attention to them later.
| | 03:25 |
So, for example I would likely apply an
increase in saturation, at least to some
| | 03:28 |
extent, obviously not to this extent, for
this image.
| | 03:32 |
Well, it's good to be aware that, that
pink is there, that those magenta tones
| | 03:36 |
are there so that I don't take that
adjustment too far.
| | 03:40 |
Or that I maybe tone down just the
magentas, or shift the color balance
| | 03:43 |
toward green to compensate for that
magenta.
| | 03:46 |
There're a variety of ways I might
compensate for that magenta, or I might
| | 03:50 |
leave it alone depending on the
circumstances.
| | 03:54 |
But, the point is, that by boosting the
saturation temporarily to the maximum
| | 03:57 |
value, we'll get a much better sense of
what's going on in the image as far as
| | 04:01 |
color is concerned.
Once you're finished evaluating the image
| | 04:06 |
and you have a good sense of that color.
You can simply discard the Hue Saturation
| | 04:10 |
adjustment layer, which you can do simply
by dragging the thumbnail for the Hue
| | 04:13 |
Saturation adjustment layer down to the
trashcan icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.
| | 04:19 |
You can then continue on with the various
adjustments you might want to apply to
| | 04:23 |
your image.
But, with a better sense of what's going
| | 04:26 |
on in terms of color within that image.
| | 04:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Info panel| 00:02 |
In many respects, digital photography is
all about numbers, and yet I think it's
| | 00:05 |
fair to say that generally speaking, we'd
rather not think too much about the
| | 00:09 |
numbers and instead just focus on our
images.
| | 00:14 |
That said, at times the numbers behind the
pixel values can be very helpful, and you
| | 00:18 |
might actually want to see what those
numbers reflect.
| | 00:22 |
And it's possible to do so utilizing the
Info panel in Photoshop.
| | 00:27 |
Let's take a look at what the Info panel
has to offer.
| | 00:30 |
I'll start off by selecting the Window
menu and then choosing Info in order to
| | 00:33 |
bring up the Info panel because I don't
currently have it visible in Photoshop.
| | 00:39 |
You'll see that at the moment that Info
panel is showing up in a dock next to the
| | 00:42 |
Properties panel.
But, I could also move it to another
| | 00:46 |
location or have it free-floating if I
wanted to.
| | 00:49 |
But, let's take a look at the information
that can be presented on the Info panel.
| | 00:53 |
First and foremost, we might focus on the
RGB values in the image.
| | 00:59 |
This photo, for example, looks to be
comprised primarily of shades of gray.
| | 01:03 |
There are relatively bright shades of gray
and relatively dark shades of gray.
| | 01:08 |
Perhaps even some white or black pixels at
the extremes of the tonal range but then
| | 01:12 |
the question is, are the values in this
image actually neutral?
| | 01:16 |
And this is just one of the many questions
that you might have about pixel values in
| | 01:19 |
the image.
I'll go ahead and move my mouse out over
| | 01:23 |
the image and when I do so, you'll notice
that the Info panel displays values for RGB.
| | 01:29 |
It also displays other information but
lets focus on the RGB values at the moment.
| | 01:34 |
And you'll notice that the pixel that
happens to be below my mouse right now has
| | 01:39 |
a red value of 204, a green value of 199
and a blue value of 196.
| | 01:47 |
Those values represent the amount of red,
green and blue light that is being
| | 01:51 |
combined to create the current pixel.
For an 8 bit per channel image, those
| | 01:58 |
values range between zero and 255.
In other words, a total of 256 possible values.
| | 02:05 |
So, RGB values of zero, zero, zero
represent black and RGB values of 255, 255
| | 02:11 |
and 255 represents white and of course,
there are many possibilities in between.
| | 02:19 |
What we can therefore determine, in this
case, is that the pixel underneath my
| | 02:24 |
mouse right now is a little bit on the red
side.
| | 02:28 |
The green and blue values are reasonably
close to each other, but the red value is
| | 02:32 |
relatively high compared to others, and so
the colors are not in balance.
| | 02:37 |
We know that it is not a shade of neutral
gray, because that would require RGB
| | 02:40 |
values that are equal to each other.
It's reasonably close to a neutral gray
| | 02:46 |
value but it's a little bit more toward
red than the other colors.
| | 02:50 |
And looking throughout the image, you'll
find some areas that seem to have just a
| | 02:54 |
slight yellowish tint to them, for
example, and other colors as well.
| | 02:58 |
Very subtle colors but colors never the
less.
| | 03:01 |
So, for example, the pixel that I'm
pointing at with my mouse at the moment
| | 03:05 |
has a relatively high red value and
relatively low green and blue values.
| | 03:10 |
The opposite of green is magenta and the
opposite of blue is yellow.
| | 03:14 |
And so, we have essentially a combination
of red magenta and yellow for that pixel.
| | 03:20 |
And, if you look a little more closely you
can see that it is some sort of shade of
| | 03:23 |
yellowish-orange, which makes perfect
sense based on the RGB values we are seeing.
| | 03:30 |
If you're working with a 16 bit per
channel image, you'll still see by default
| | 03:34 |
8 bit per channel values.
In the 16 bit per channel color mode, each
| | 03:40 |
value for red, green, or blue has a total
possible number of values of 65,536
| | 03:45 |
whereas for an 8 bit image the maximum
value is 255 for a total of 256 possible
| | 03:51 |
color values.
If you'd like to view the 16 bit per
| | 03:58 |
channel values for your 16 bit images, you
can click the eyedropper associated with
| | 04:02 |
the RGB values and then choose the 16 bit
option.
| | 04:06 |
At the moment I'm working with an 8 bit
per channel image, however, and so, these
| | 04:10 |
values are really not that meaningful.
You'll notice that I'm still getting
| | 04:16 |
values that range from zero to 65,536.
But I'm really actually working with 8 bit
| | 04:22 |
per channel data.
And so, I'm only seeing those values
| | 04:25 |
essentially as a scaled up version of my 8
bit data.
| | 04:30 |
Generally speaking, simply using the 8 bit
option, even for 16 bit per channel
| | 04:33 |
images, will work perfectly fine.
And frankly, it'll be a little bit more
| | 04:38 |
manageable because you'll be able to
better evaluate the numbers that you are
| | 04:41 |
seeing on that Info panel.
But, the bottom line is that those RGB
| | 04:46 |
values can be very helpful especially in
evaluating colors to get a better sense of
| | 04:50 |
what's going on in particular areas of the
image.
| | 04:54 |
Or when you want to try to make sure that
a particular area is perfectly neutral gray.
| | 04:59 |
So, while you might not thing about the
numbers behind the pixels all that often,
| | 05:03 |
sometimes that information can be helpful
and you'll find it on the info panel.
| | 05:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reading a histogram| 00:02 |
Chances are you're already familiar with
the histogram by evaluating it on the back
| | 00:05 |
of your camera perhaps or even seeing it
in conjunction with certain adjustments in
| | 00:09 |
Photoshop or other software.
But Photoshop also offers a histogram
| | 00:14 |
panel that provides a variety of different
options for how you present a histogram
| | 00:18 |
and that can affect how you interpret the
histogram for your images as well.
| | 00:23 |
Let's take a look at the histogram panel
and the various options that it offers
| | 00:27 |
I'll start off by bringing up the
histogram panels and since it's not
| | 00:30 |
currently visible I'll do that by choosing
Window from the menu and then choosing Histogram.
| | 00:37 |
That brings up the histogram panel which
at the moment is just a floating panel and
| | 00:40 |
you'll see that we have a somewhat unusual
looking histogram by virtue of fact that
| | 00:44 |
it contains a wide variety of colors.
We'll take a look at what that means in
| | 00:50 |
just a moment, but first, you might notice
that I have an alert symbol here, a
| | 00:53 |
triangle with an exclamation point in it,
and what that's telling me is that the
| | 00:57 |
current histogram is based on cached data
for my image.
| | 01:02 |
In other words, it doesn't reflect the
latest updates to this photo.
| | 01:06 |
I can correct that by simply clicking on
that alert icon.
| | 01:09 |
When I do so, you'll notice that the
histogram will change, ever so slightly.
| | 01:13 |
In this case, a very tiny adjustment
indeed to that histogram.
| | 01:17 |
But it is worthwhile to make sure that
you're looking at the latest histogram
| | 01:21 |
with the most accurate rendering of the
current image data.
| | 01:26 |
And note, by the way, that this histogram
will reflect changes that I make to this image.
| | 01:31 |
So as I apply adjustments, this histogram
will change in real time.
| | 01:35 |
We can also change the histograms
presentation to our liking.
| | 01:39 |
Which might make it a little bit easier to
interpret some of the information.
| | 01:42 |
Let's take a look at those various
options.
| | 01:45 |
I'll start off by clicking on the panel
pop up menu up toward the top right of the
| | 01:48 |
Histogram panel.
You'll see that at the moment I'm looking
| | 01:52 |
at the compact view for the histogram,
let's go ahead and take a look at the
| | 01:55 |
expanded view, and you'll see that this
presents a little bit larger histogram.
| | 02:01 |
Specifically, it is now 256 pixels wide,
which conceptually means that it's
| | 02:06 |
presenting the full range of tonal values
for an eight bit per channel image.
| | 02:12 |
You'll also notice that I have some
additional statistical information down below.
| | 02:17 |
So we can see the mean or average value of
pixels.
| | 02:21 |
We can also see the standard deviation,
the median value, the total number of
| | 02:24 |
pixels, and a variety of other
information.
| | 02:27 |
If you'd like to hide that particular
information, you can turn off the Show
| | 02:31 |
Statistics option from the panel popup
menu, and that information will disappear.
| | 02:37 |
Now at the moment, we're viewing the
colors view for the histogram, and that
| | 02:41 |
means that all three color channels are
represented all at once.
| | 02:46 |
So you'll see here the red channel, the
green channel, and the blue channel all
| | 02:49 |
represented, and of course, in areas where
they overlap, we'll see a different color.
| | 02:55 |
So where the green and blue channels
overlap, for example, we'll see cyan.
| | 03:00 |
Where all three channels overlap, we'll
see gray.
| | 03:04 |
Of course, then we have to consider the
question of what do we mean by overlapping?
| | 03:07 |
Well, the histogram of course is a
reflection of the data within the image.
| | 03:12 |
Specifically, we range from black at the
far left to white at the far right, and
| | 03:16 |
we're seeing that information for each
individual channel.
| | 03:21 |
So, the degree of red light, green light,
and blue light, as it were or more
| | 03:24 |
specifically, the distribution or pixels.
So, how many red pixels have a value of
| | 03:30 |
zero and you'll see that there are quite a
few.
| | 03:34 |
How many have a value of 255.
Well, very, very few.
| | 03:38 |
Perhaps none at all, depending on what the
specific value is there.
| | 03:41 |
And so we can see the overall distribution
of red pixels in the image.
| | 03:45 |
As well as the overall distribution of
green pixels, as well as blue pixels.
| | 03:50 |
But by red, green and blue in this
context, I simply mean the specific tonal
| | 03:53 |
values on each of those channels.
So, in other words, we're seeing the
| | 03:58 |
overall distribution of color information
as well as tonal information.
| | 04:01 |
To get a better sense of that, let's take
a look at the individual channels.
| | 04:05 |
We have the red channel, for example, and
now we can see a little bit more clearly
| | 04:09 |
the distribution of the various tonal
values on the red channel.
| | 04:14 |
In other words where there is no red
versus maximum red.
| | 04:18 |
At least in the context of the red value
for each individual pixel throughout the image.
| | 04:23 |
We can switch to the green channel and see
the distribution of green values for our
| | 04:27 |
pixels as well as the blue channel to see
the distribution of blue channels.
| | 04:32 |
And we can switch to the luminosity view
so that we're able to view the overall
| | 04:36 |
luminence data for our image.
In other words, what our histogram would
| | 04:41 |
look like if we did a very basic black and
white conversion for our image.
| | 04:45 |
You'll notice that we also have the RGB
option at the top of this channel pop-up.
| | 04:50 |
And I strongly recommend that you simply
ignore this option.
| | 04:54 |
It's really not meaningful in the context
of a photographic image.
| | 04:58 |
In most cases I prefer the colors option,
but of course this is presenting the red,
| | 05:02 |
green, and blue channel information all
stacked on top of one another, and that
| | 05:06 |
can be a little bit distracting or
difficult to interpret and so you might
| | 05:09 |
want to view the luminosity histogram
instead as a good.
| | 05:15 |
General reflection of the overall tonal
values.
| | 05:18 |
In other words, how many pixels are black?
How many pixels are white?
| | 05:21 |
And how many pixels are shades of gray in
between at least in terms of their
| | 05:25 |
luminance or brightness values?
In other words, this doesn't mean that
| | 05:29 |
those pixels are actually gray, they just
have a specific brightness value.
| | 05:34 |
But if you'd also like to be able to see
the red, green, and blue channels, you can
| | 05:37 |
enable that display as well.
I'll click once again on the panel pop up menu.
| | 05:43 |
And I'll choose All Channels View from the
pop up menu.
| | 05:47 |
And now you can see I have essentially
that color's view split out.
| | 05:51 |
I have the red channel, the green channel,
and the blue channel all visible.
| | 05:56 |
All at the same time, but not stacked on
top of each other.
| | 05:59 |
In addition, to make it a little easier to
interpret this information we can display
| | 06:03 |
the channels in color right here on the
histogram panel.
| | 06:08 |
So I'll choose that option from the panel
pop up menu, and now you'll see the red
| | 06:11 |
channel is reflected as red, the green
presented as green, and the blue reflected
| | 06:15 |
with a blue color.
And so now, we have our luminance information.
| | 06:20 |
It's not updated at the moment so I'll
click on that alert symbol, as well as our
| | 06:23 |
red, green, and blue information.
So now we can get a sense of, well, we've
| | 06:28 |
lost detail on the red channel in the
shadows.
| | 06:31 |
It doesn't look like we've lost detail on
any of the channels for the white values,
| | 06:35 |
which means of course there's no pure
white pixel for the image.
| | 06:39 |
We have some pixels that are very very
close.
| | 06:42 |
But none that appear white, so we've not
lost highlight detail.
| | 06:45 |
And we can see the overall distribution of
color values as well.
| | 06:48 |
The brighter values tend to be more blue
and the darker values tend to be more red
| | 06:53 |
or green, which means we would expect to
see some red and greens.
| | 06:58 |
To be sure but also the combination of red
and green, which would be yellow, so we'll
| | 07:02 |
see some of those more yellowish tones in
the background for example, and so this
| | 07:05 |
gives us an opportunity to evaluate the
overall image.
| | 07:10 |
Some of this of course is obvious just by
looking at the image, the distribution of
| | 07:13 |
tonal values, but we can also see where we
might have lost detail for a particular
| | 07:17 |
channel for example.
And get other information that can be
| | 07:22 |
helpful in evaluating our overall results
as well as the adjustments that we've
| | 07:25 |
applied, because once again keep in mind
that as we apply adjustments, we'll be
| | 07:29 |
able to see the effect live on that
histogram.
| | 07:33 |
I'll go ahead and apply some changes to
the image for example and we can see that
| | 07:36 |
the histograms are getting stretched out
of course based on what is in this case a
| | 07:40 |
rather strong adjustment but the point is
that we're able to see those changes in
| | 07:43 |
real time as we apply adjustments to the
image.
| | 07:49 |
So while the histogram is certainly
helpful on the back of the camera when you
| | 07:52 |
capture an image, it's also very helpful
in the context of Photoshop as you are
| | 07:55 |
evaluating your results.
Naturally you'll tend to focus most of
| | 08:00 |
your attention on the image itself, but
when it comes to determining how much
| | 08:03 |
shadow detail has been blocked up or how
much highlight detail might have been lost
| | 08:06 |
the histogram can really be quite helpful.
| | 08:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing color channels| 00:02 |
Each pixel in a color image has a specific
color value of course, and generally
| | 00:06 |
speaking those values will be RGB values,
meaning red, green, and blue.
| | 00:12 |
Since RGB is the color space that we
typical utilize for color images.
| | 00:17 |
That color information is stored on
channels.
| | 00:20 |
A channel is essentially a grey scale
image, where each tonal value on that
| | 00:24 |
channel represents a specific amount of a
given color, specifically red, green, or blue.
| | 00:31 |
Let's take a look at the Channels panel
and see what the channels can tell us
| | 00:35 |
about the information in our images.
I'll start off by selecting the Channels panel.
| | 00:40 |
If you don't have the Channels panel
available, you can go to the Window menu.
| | 00:44 |
And then choose Channels to bring it up.
But I have my Channels panel here with the
| | 00:48 |
Layers panel and so I'll simply click on
the tab for Channels.
| | 00:52 |
And you can see I have an RGB composite
channel, which essentially is just a
| | 00:55 |
placeholder for the full color image.
But I also have channels for red, green
| | 01:01 |
and blue so, RGB in my RGB color image.
And I can evaluate each of those channels individually.
| | 01:08 |
I'll start off with the red channel, I'll
simply click on the thumbnail for the red channel.
| | 01:13 |
And now we can see which pixels have a
particular amount of red in them.
| | 01:18 |
Obviously we're not going to analyze
individual little pixels, but rather we'll
| | 01:22 |
simply evaluate the overall information
contained on the channel.
| | 01:27 |
In this case, we can see for example, that
in the background there are relatively
| | 01:30 |
bright tonal values.
Which means those areas have a relatively
| | 01:34 |
large amount of red in them.
And, of course, we'll recall from the full
| | 01:38 |
color image, that those are fall color
leaves.
| | 01:41 |
So, they have a lot of yellows and oranges
and of course, there's a fair amount of
| | 01:45 |
red in the orange values.
Thus we see some moderately bright areas
| | 01:50 |
back there as well as in the foreground,
of course.
| | 01:54 |
And we also see some very bright areas on
the stripes on the hood of the car here.
| | 01:59 |
And those stripes, you may recall, are
white, and white represents the relatively
| | 02:04 |
high or even maximum amount of intensity
for red, green and blue combined.
| | 02:10 |
By contrast, the car here has relatively
dark tones.
| | 02:14 |
And of course, that's because the car is a
shade of green and there's not very much
| | 02:18 |
red in green.
In fact the opposite of red is cyan and
| | 02:22 |
cyan is quite close to green.
So, it makes sense that the red channel
| | 02:27 |
would be dark in those areas and also the
tires appear very dark.
| | 02:31 |
But that also makes perfect sense, because
the tires are roughly black or very close
| | 02:35 |
to black anyway.
And so, we would expect that for all three
| | 02:38 |
color channels that area would be dark.
I'll go ahead and click on the thumbnail
| | 02:44 |
for the green channel so, that we can take
a look at that green channel and we'll see
| | 02:47 |
that the leaves are a little bit darker.
There's still some green going on, there.
| | 02:53 |
But they're certainly darker than the
reds, for example.
| | 02:56 |
The opposite of green by the way, is
magenta.
| | 02:59 |
So, anything that appears dark on the
green channel, we would assume to appear
| | 03:03 |
at least somewhat magenta, or closer to
magenta than green.
| | 03:07 |
But once again you'll notice, for example,
that the white stripes appear white on the
| | 03:11 |
green channel.
We would expect them to appear white on
| | 03:14 |
all three channels.
And the black tires appear dark on the
| | 03:17 |
green channel, of course.
You also may notice that the green channel
| | 03:22 |
contains the most detail, at least of the
two channels we've seen so far.
| | 03:26 |
In essence, the green channel looks the
most like a normal black and white
| | 03:29 |
photographic image.
And that's because the majority of the
| | 03:32 |
information we're gathering with a typical
image sensor in a camera, is in the green
| | 03:36 |
range of the visible spectrum.
In fact for the typical image sensor in a
| | 03:41 |
digital camera, there are twice as many
green pixels as there are red or blue pixels.
| | 03:46 |
Let's go ahead and take a look at the blue
channel and here you may notice a couple
| | 03:50 |
of interesting things.
First of, you'll see that there are some
| | 03:54 |
splotchy dark areas that is mostly because
in that background we have those fall
| | 03:58 |
colors, and they are relatively yellow and
yellow's the opposite of blue.
| | 04:04 |
Once again, we see the stripe is white,
and the tire is black, but another
| | 04:08 |
interesting thing that you may notice with
the blue channel is that it will tend to
| | 04:12 |
be the noisiest channel.
It will be the channel that has the least
| | 04:17 |
quality information, and so panning
around, you may notice that blue channel
| | 04:21 |
appears a little more mottled.
The transitions from one tonal value to
| | 04:29 |
another will not appear to be as smooth in
other words, there's some posterization
| | 04:33 |
and we're more likely to see noise.
And so, the blue channel is typically the
| | 04:38 |
one that's going to have the least useful
information for our images.
| | 04:43 |
And that can be good to know, when it
comes to things such as noise reduction
| | 04:45 |
for our images.
The bottom line is that we can get quite a
| | 04:48 |
bit of information about our images, when
we look at the individual channels.
| | 04:53 |
But perhaps more importantly, we can
identify a variety of potential problems.
| | 04:57 |
We can see for example, on the blue
channel, when we might have some issues
| | 05:01 |
with noise or we lack of detail and we can
get a better sense of the overall tonal.
| | 05:06 |
And color values by evaluating the
channels individually.
| | 05:10 |
And of course when you're finished, you
can click on the thumbnail for the RGB
| | 05:13 |
channel to get back to your full color
image with a little bit better sense of
| | 05:16 |
what's going on behind the scenes.
| | 05:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Foundations of Color AdjustmentBasic color for raw| 00:02 |
If you're taking advantage of your
camera's raw capture capability, then when
| | 00:05 |
you initially open an image in Photoshop,
it will actually be opened in Adobe camera raw.
| | 00:10 |
And that allows you to establish the
settings for the raw conversion, utilizing
| | 00:14 |
Adobe camera raw.
And, of course, in that process you're
| | 00:18 |
going to need to make some decisions about
color.
| | 00:21 |
So let's consider the basic color
adjustments that are available within an
| | 00:24 |
adobe camera raw.
We'll start off with a white balance
| | 00:28 |
adjustment, this is often referred to as a
color temperature adjustment because it
| | 00:31 |
revolves around the overall temperature of
light.
| | 00:35 |
In other words, is the light relatively
warm or relatively cool.
| | 00:39 |
There are several ways we can adjust the
overall white balance.
| | 00:42 |
The first is to use a preset.
So if we know what the conditions were in
| | 00:45 |
terms of lighting, we can click the pop up
and choose a particular preset.
| | 00:50 |
In this case, for example, the daylight
option produces a relatively accurate
| | 00:54 |
color in the image.
And that makes perfect sense since the
| | 00:57 |
image was captured under daylight
conditions.
| | 01:00 |
I might also take a look at cloudy, which
produces a slightly warmer version of the
| | 01:03 |
image because it's compensating for
relatively cool light.
| | 01:07 |
As would be the case under cloudy
conditions.
| | 01:10 |
I can also utilize an eyedropper in order
to click on a specific pixel in the image
| | 01:14 |
that should be neutral gray.
And that will apply an automatic white
| | 01:18 |
balance adjustment.
So I'll choose the eyedropper on the toolbar.
| | 01:21 |
And then I can click within the image and
try to find a pixel that should be
| | 01:24 |
absolutely perfectly neutral gray.
If I click on the wrong pixel, of course
| | 01:29 |
I'll get some rather interesting and odd
colors, but if I can find just the right
| | 01:33 |
pixel to click on, I can get a good
result.
| | 01:36 |
Of course, in many cases your going want
to fine tone that result and that's where
| | 01:40 |
the temperature and tint slider come in.
The temperature slider allows me to shift
| | 01:45 |
between a warmer version of the image in
other words an image that appears a bit
| | 01:49 |
more yellow verses a cooler version of the
image where one that appears more blue.
| | 01:55 |
You can think of this in very general
terms as adding moonlight or sunlight.
| | 01:59 |
And it can be helpful to swing this slider
through its extremes to get a better sense
| | 02:03 |
of how the color is affected throughout
the photo.
| | 02:07 |
In many cases, I'll want to not just
neutralize the color, but actually shift
| | 02:10 |
it toward a slightly warmer value.
But in this case, I think I'll keep it
| | 02:14 |
relatively cool.
Just a little bit cooler than what might
| | 02:17 |
be considered a neutral color value.
Once I have the temperature adjustment
| | 02:22 |
where I'd like it, I can take a look at
the tint slider.
| | 02:24 |
This allows me to shift between magenta
and green.
| | 02:28 |
This, of course, tends to be more purely
corrective because we don't tend to want
| | 02:31 |
to have a magenta tint or a green tint on
our image.
| | 02:35 |
And so it's not so much a creative
adjustment, but rather just a purely
| | 02:39 |
corrective adjustment.
And so we'll move that adjustment back and
| | 02:43 |
forth as needed.
In order to try and get the best color in
| | 02:46 |
the image.
And speaking of getting the best color in
| | 02:48 |
an image, in many cases boosting the
saturation of colors can really have a big
| | 02:52 |
impact, especially when color is central
to the image.
| | 02:57 |
But, when it comes to increasing or even
decreasing saturation.
| | 03:00 |
The first control that I look at is
vibrance.
| | 03:03 |
The vibrance adjustment allows me to
increase or decrease the saturation in the
| | 03:07 |
image, but it's not applying that
adjustment in a linear way.
| | 03:12 |
When I increase the value for Vibrance,
colors that are not very saturated will be
| | 03:17 |
effected more than colors that are already
saturated.
| | 03:21 |
So, in this case, for example, the sky
will get more of a boost than will the
| | 03:24 |
yellow in the airplane because the sky
doesn't have very much saturation whereas
| | 03:27 |
the yellow in the airplane is already very
saturated.
| | 03:33 |
In other words when I reduce vibrance the
colors that have strong saturation will be
| | 03:37 |
reduced in saturation more so than the
colors that are not very saturated.
| | 03:42 |
And that's a good thing because when we
want to tone down the colors in our image
| | 03:45 |
that doesn't mean that we want the areas
that are all that saturated to become
| | 03:48 |
completely gray.
In most cases, of course, we tend to like
| | 03:53 |
having a little bit of a boost in
saturation, and so I would tend to
| | 03:55 |
increase the value for vibrance just a
little bit, and then I can take a look at
| | 03:58 |
the saturation slider as needed.
This applies a more linear adjustment,
| | 04:04 |
meaning the colors are being affected in a
more even way, so increasing saturation
| | 04:07 |
will increase the saturation evenly for
all colors in the photo.
| | 04:12 |
And reducing the value for saturation will
tone down the colors in a relatively even way.
| | 04:17 |
In some cases, you may find that you want
to increase the saturation for colors that
| | 04:21 |
are not all that saturated using vibrants
but then tone down the overall image, or
| | 04:25 |
you may want to tone down just the highly
saturated colors, but then bring the
| | 04:29 |
overall saturation up just a little bit.
The point is that we can work with both of
| | 04:36 |
these controls, for fine tuning the
saturation of colors in our photos.
| | 04:40 |
So, there you have it.
By adjusting the white balance controls,
| | 04:43 |
we're able to ensure accurate or pleasing
color.
| | 04:46 |
And by adjusting vibrance and saturation,
we're able to adjust the intensity of
| | 04:50 |
those colors.
Combined, we can help ensure that right
| | 04:53 |
from the start with our raw conversion, we
have great color in our photos.
| | 04:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Automatic color with Levels or Curves| 00:02 |
If you ever find yourself struggling with
how to get the color in an image just
| | 00:05 |
right, you may want to take a look at some
of the relatively automated methods you
| | 00:08 |
can use to adjust color in an image.
Let's take a look at how we can utilize
| | 00:15 |
the levels or curves adjustment in an
automated way to improve color.
| | 00:20 |
In this case I'll utilize the levels
adjustment but you could just as easily
| | 00:23 |
use curves.
The options are exactly the same.
| | 00:27 |
I'll go to the bottom of the layers panel
and click on the add adjustment layer button.
| | 00:31 |
And then from the popup menu I'll choose
levels.
| | 00:34 |
That will add a levels adjustment layer.
And it will also give me the levels
| | 00:39 |
controls on the properties panel.
Now, you might be slightly intimidated by
| | 00:43 |
all of the various controls that are
available here, but for the moment we are
| | 00:46 |
going to completely bypass those controls.
And instead I'll go to the panel pop up
| | 00:51 |
menu associated with the properties panel,
that's the button found at the top right
| | 00:54 |
of the properties panel.
And then I'm going to choose auto options
| | 01:00 |
from the pop up menu.
Doing so will bring up the auto color
| | 01:03 |
correction options dialogue.
Now this is essentially controlling the
| | 01:08 |
behavior of the auto button.
In other words, what we see right now in
| | 01:11 |
the image is what I could've expected if I
had simply clicked the auto button on the
| | 01:15 |
properties panel.
But instead I wanted to fine tune the results.
| | 01:20 |
And that's because the automatic
adjustment here offers several different
| | 01:24 |
algorithms that we can use to adjust the
image in an automated way.
| | 01:29 |
And the simplest approach here is to
simply cycle through the various options
| | 01:33 |
and see which one produces the best
result.
| | 01:36 |
Here, for example, with enhanced
monochromatic contrast, you'll see that we
| | 01:39 |
have an image that's a little bit darker
with a little bit better contrast, but the
| | 01:42 |
color has not been improved.
Next we'll take a look at enhanced per
| | 01:46 |
channel contrast, and the color looks a
little bit better there.
| | 01:50 |
I still see a fair.
a fair amount of magenta to reddish tones
| | 01:53 |
in the rock that I don't think should be
there, so perhaps this is not the best option.
| | 01:58 |
Next, we'll take a look at "Find Dark &
Light Colors" and that looks to be pretty good.
| | 02:03 |
We have a relatively neutral result.
But speaking of neutral, we also have with
| | 02:08 |
several of these options, the snap neutral
midtones check box.
| | 02:12 |
And turning that option on will further
adjust the midtones in an effort to
| | 02:16 |
neutralize the gray values.
And as you can see, that has given us a
| | 02:20 |
very good result in terms of a relatively
automated adjustment to the image.
| | 02:26 |
I've just gone through a few different
options here in the auto color corrections dialogue.
| | 02:31 |
And the result is quite good and takes
very little time.
| | 02:34 |
If you find that a particular set of
adjustment options here tends to work best
| | 02:38 |
for you images, you can also turn on the
"Save as defaults" check-box.
| | 02:43 |
And that means that in the future, you
could simply click the auto button rather
| | 02:47 |
than bringing up this dialogue in order to
apply the adjustment through either the
| | 02:51 |
levels or curves adjustment.
I'll go ahead and click OK to apply that
| | 02:55 |
change, and you an see we have quite a
significant improvement in the image.
| | 03:00 |
I'll turn off the visibility of the levels
adjustment layer and then turn it back,
| | 03:03 |
and you can really get a sense of what a
significant and very easy adjustment we've
| | 03:07 |
applied with this image.
I'm going to turn off this levels
| | 03:12 |
adjustment layer to get back to our
original image and I'm going to add
| | 03:15 |
another levels adjustment so that we can
take a look at one additional option
| | 03:19 |
that's available.
This is sort of a semi-automatic approach
| | 03:23 |
you might say.
It's reasonably automatic just like the
| | 03:26 |
approach we just saw.
But it allows you to exercise a little bit
| | 03:30 |
more flexibility in terms of how the image
is being adjusted or interpreted and that
| | 03:34 |
is to utilize the gray eyedropper.
So, on the properties panel, you'll notice
| | 03:40 |
that we have eyedroppers for black, gray,
and white and what these allow us to do is
| | 03:43 |
simply click on a pixel in the image and
have that pixel, and therefore, the rest
| | 03:47 |
of the image adjusted so that the pixel
you originally clicked has a particular
| | 03:51 |
value, and if you utilize the gray
eyedropper that means by default which
| | 03:54 |
ever pixel we click on will become neutral
gray.
| | 04:01 |
So, for example, if I click on an area of
the image that is relatively yellow, I
| | 04:05 |
will end up with a relatively blue result,
because yellow and blue are opposite colors.
| | 04:11 |
But if I click on an area of the image
that should be neutral gray, that area
| | 04:15 |
will become neutral gray.
And assuming I clicked on a pixel that
| | 04:19 |
really should be neutral gray, the overall
color in the image will be greatly improved.
| | 04:24 |
So you can see here I've clicked on a
pixel and I've got a little bit of a
| | 04:26 |
yellowish result.
So, a little too warm.
| | 04:30 |
I must have clicked on a pixel that was
quite blue and therefore I'm ending up
| | 04:34 |
with a less than neutral result, with a
very warm result.
| | 04:38 |
But I can click in various areas of this
gray rock, for example, and try to find a
| | 04:41 |
pixel to click on that will produce a good
result.
| | 04:45 |
And now you can see I've achieved a pretty
good result with the particular pixel that
| | 04:49 |
I clicked on.
But of course the process of finding that
| | 04:53 |
pixel sort of highlights the limitation of
this approach.
| | 04:56 |
Specifically that you end up click, click,
click, clicking all around through the image.
| | 05:02 |
Basically hoping you'll get lucky and
click on just the right pixel.
| | 05:05 |
Because you really do need just the right
pixel in order to produce the best result.
| | 05:10 |
In other words a pixel that really should
be perfectly neutral gray.
| | 05:14 |
So this approach sometimes can be a little
more time consuming, and perhaps even
| | 05:17 |
slightly frustrating.
But it is effective once you've clicked on
| | 05:21 |
the right pixel.
But I'm going to turn off this adjustment
| | 05:24 |
layer and then turn on our previous
adjustment layer and you'll see we
| | 05:27 |
achieved a very, very good result with the
automated approach, utilizing those auto options.
| | 05:34 |
And so in situations where you just want a
quick and easy adjustment, This is
| | 05:38 |
certainly a good place to start in terms
of balancing those colors within your photo.
| | 05:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Essentials of Color Balance| 00:02 |
The color balance adjustment is one of the
more basic adjustments when it comes to color.
| | 00:07 |
And yet I feel that most photographers
seem to struggle with this adjustment the most.
| | 00:11 |
And it's not that the color balance
adjustment itself is all that complicated,
| | 00:15 |
it's actually quite simple.
Its that it can sometimes be difficult to
| | 00:19 |
evaluate visually the overall color and
perhaps more importantly to figure out
| | 00:23 |
which direction you need to shift that
color toward.
| | 00:28 |
Let's take a look at the color balance
adjustment so we can better understand
| | 00:31 |
what it offers and how we can best put it
to use.
| | 00:34 |
I'll start off by going to the bottom of
the layers panel and clicking on the add
| | 00:37 |
adjustment layer button and then I'll
choose color balance from the pop up menu.
| | 00:42 |
That will add a color balance adjustment
on the layers panel and it will also Also
| | 00:45 |
provide me with the controls on the
properties panel.
| | 00:49 |
And by and large, those controls are
pretty straight forward.
| | 00:52 |
We have three sliders that allow us to
shift between the additive primary colors
| | 00:56 |
and the subtractive primary colors.
In other words, the colors that are based
| | 01:02 |
on light, red, green, and blue where we
add light to the scene.
| | 01:06 |
Or the subtractive primaries of cyan,
magenta and yellow, which are based on ink.
| | 01:13 |
And, therefore, a situation where the ink
is absorbing light, not reflecting all of
| | 01:17 |
the light that strikes it.
But, more simply were able to shift the
| | 01:21 |
color in the image in one direction or
another for each of these axes.
| | 01:26 |
Now, the thing to keep in mind is that
when we're adjusting a particular color,
| | 01:30 |
for example.
When we're shifting between cyan and red,
| | 01:34 |
we're not only affecting the cyan and red
pixels within the image.
| | 01:39 |
We're affecting every single pixel to some
extent.
| | 01:42 |
So if I shift towards cyan, everything
moves towards cyan.
| | 01:46 |
The yellow pixels become more cyan.
The red pixels become more cyan.
| | 01:51 |
The green pixels become more cyan.
What this really relates to essentially is
| | 01:54 |
the color wheel.
We're shifting the values of every single
| | 01:58 |
pixel across the color wheel.
So a red pixel becomes more cyan.
| | 02:04 |
Well, cyan is the opposite of red, and so,
what that really means initially, is that
| | 02:08 |
the red pixel is getting closer to neutral
gray.
| | 02:11 |
And if we take it far enough, it will
continue over towards cyan.
| | 02:15 |
Of course, it can be a little bit tricky
to anticipate how each color is going to
| | 02:19 |
be affected.
And so, when you're adjusting the
| | 02:22 |
individual sliders, I do encourage you to
swing those sliders through their extremes.
| | 02:27 |
So you get a better sense of how you're
going to impact the image.
| | 02:31 |
My general approach with color balance is
to start with the biggest problem, in
| | 02:35 |
other words when I look at the image.
If I feel that it just has too much of a
| | 02:39 |
shift toward one particular color, that's
where I'm going to start.
| | 02:44 |
In this case, it seems to me that the
image has a little bit too yellow.
| | 02:48 |
there's almost a sort of dingy look to the
image.
| | 02:51 |
And this was photographed on an overcast
day so I feel that the tone should be just
| | 02:55 |
a little bit cooler.
And so since I believe that yellow is the
| | 02:58 |
problem, or at least the most significant
adjustment that's needed in this case.
| | 03:03 |
I'm going to start off with the slider
that relates to yellow and that would be
| | 03:06 |
the yellow blue slider of course.
And specifically I'll drag that slider
| | 03:11 |
over toward the right to make the colors a
little cooler a little bit more blue.
| | 03:15 |
If I take the slider all the way to the
extreme of course we see a much more blue
| | 03:19 |
sort of slightly purplish effect.
And if we take it over toward yellow we
| | 03:24 |
see an even worse effect in terms of all
that yellow.
| | 03:27 |
Considering that I felt there was too much
yellow to begin with and so in this case I
| | 03:30 |
know I'm going to want to move over toward
the blue side.
| | 03:34 |
Over toward the right which means a
positive value for this slider to the left
| | 03:37 |
would be negative yellow in this case.
And to the right would be a positive value
| | 03:41 |
blue in this case.
And I'll typically start by making an
| | 03:45 |
adjustment that's more than I believe I
need.
| | 03:48 |
Mostly to just get a better sense of how
much I might want to adjust the image, and
| | 03:52 |
I think right about there looks to be
pretty good in terms of that color.
| | 03:57 |
It's important to keep in mind that as
we're applying a color adjustment, we
| | 04:00 |
might still need to apply some tonal
adjustments.
| | 04:04 |
I might want to brighten the whites in
this image for example.
| | 04:07 |
And so you may find yourself wanting to
apply a tonal adjustment first followed by
| | 04:10 |
a color adjustment or vice verse.
And you may very well switch back and
| | 04:15 |
forth between those adjustments as you
continue fine tuning the image.
| | 04:19 |
But once you've gotten a result that
you're reasonably happy with in terms of
| | 04:22 |
the slider you started with.
I've started with yellow blue here then
| | 04:26 |
you'll want to move onto the other sliders
and I do recommend that you do adjust
| | 04:29 |
every single slider.
You may end up bringing it right back to
| | 04:33 |
where you originally started at a neutral
value of zero.
| | 04:37 |
But I still recommend going through each
of them.
| | 04:39 |
And, in fact, going through each of them
more than once, so that you can really
| | 04:42 |
fine-tune things.
I'll show you a little trick for
| | 04:45 |
fine-tuning in a moment.
But first, I'll take a look at the
| | 04:48 |
Cyan-Red slider, and that one I think I'll
shift ever so slightly towards Cyan in
| | 04:52 |
keeping with my desire to cool off the
image a little bit.
| | 04:56 |
And then I can take a look at the
green-magenta slider, and that one I think
| | 05:00 |
I'll take a little bit toward magenta, not
too much, but just a little.
| | 05:06 |
As you continue fine tuning each of these
sliders.
| | 05:08 |
You may get to a point where you feel that
you just don't have that degree of control
| | 05:12 |
over the slider that you'd like using the
mouse.
| | 05:15 |
And in that case you can utilize a little
trick.
| | 05:18 |
Simply click in the text box associated
with the slider that you want to adjust.
| | 05:22 |
And then use the up arrow key to increase
the value or move the slider over to the right.
| | 05:27 |
And the down arrow key to move the slider
to the left or reduce the value.
| | 05:31 |
You can also hold the Shift key to
increase or decrease by a factor of 10 to
| | 05:35 |
make a little bit more obvious adjustment
to the image.
| | 05:39 |
But this allows you to really work with a
bit more precision so you can focus
| | 05:42 |
completely on the image itself.
As you increase or decrease the values for
| | 05:47 |
each slider.
Once again, I do recommend moving through
| | 05:50 |
each of those sliders more then once, so
that you can really fine tune the result
| | 05:54 |
you are going to achieve.
And at this point I think that I'm in
| | 05:58 |
pretty good shape.
Let's take a look at the before version.
| | 06:02 |
I'll click on the eye icon to the left of
the color balance adjustment in order to
| | 06:06 |
turn off that adjustment.
And then I will click on that empty box
| | 06:09 |
once again in order to reveal the
adjustment again.
| | 06:12 |
And I think I have a big improvement for
this image.
| | 06:15 |
A much better result in terms of color in
as far as the original subject is concerned.
| | 06:21 |
This photo as I mentioned was captured on
an overcast day and so we really would
| | 06:25 |
expect to have a much cooler tones in the
image.
| | 06:30 |
Now its worth noting that there are a
couple of other options on the properties
| | 06:33 |
panel for color balance.
The first is preserve luminosity and I
| | 06:36 |
recommend leaving this check box turned
on.
| | 06:39 |
We already know that red, green, and blue
are based on light and so as we shift
| | 06:43 |
toward those values we're essentially
adding light to the image.
| | 06:48 |
Where as if we drag to the left we're
essentially subtracting light from the image.
| | 06:52 |
As a result shifting the color values can
actually impact the overall tonality.
| | 06:57 |
Generally speaking of course we'll want to
save our tonal adjustments for other tools
| | 07:01 |
within Photoshop.
And use the color balance adjustment
| | 07:05 |
strictly for tonal adjustments.
And therefore I prefer to leave the
| | 07:08 |
Preserve Luminosity check box turned on.
The only time I'll turn this option off is
| | 07:13 |
if I'm trying to achieve a perfectly
neutral gray.
| | 07:17 |
Because in that situation I want to make
sure that when I adjust one slider, I'm
| | 07:20 |
only affecting one color value, not all of
the values.
| | 07:24 |
I also have the option to adjust shadows
or highlights independent of mid-tones.
| | 07:30 |
But the reality is that in most cases,
there's such an overlap in the overall
| | 07:33 |
tonal values in the image.
That you're really not going to get the
| | 07:36 |
result you might expect.
I'll go ahead and choose Shadows, for
| | 07:39 |
example, and then I'll shift toward green,
and toward magenta.
| | 07:43 |
And you may be able to tell that, that
adjustment is certainly focused on the
| | 07:46 |
shadows, but it's still affecting the
entire image.
| | 07:50 |
So in situations where I want to adjust
only the highlights or only the shadows in
| | 07:53 |
terms of color balance.
I'll actually make use of a technique that
| | 07:57 |
involves the curves adjustment rather then
the color balance adjustment.
| | 08:02 |
So in most cases, I'll simply utilize the
mid-tones option and fine-tune the balance
| | 08:06 |
of colors in the image, until I'm happy
with the result.
| | 08:09 |
Going through each of those sliders
multiple times, until I think the color is
| | 08:13 |
balanced out perfectly.
| | 08:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Darkening for color| 00:02 |
I wanted to share a quick little tip with
you.
| | 00:04 |
Something that I think might be helpful to
keep in mind, as you're continuing to work
| | 00:08 |
on color correcting your images.
Especially in the context of a broader
| | 00:12 |
work flow.
Because, after all, color correction is
| | 00:15 |
just one piece of the overall image
optimization workflow.
| | 00:19 |
So, as you're adjusting your images, one
of the things to keep in mind is that when
| | 00:23 |
we darken down our image the perceived
color saturation actually increases a
| | 00:27 |
little bit.
And therefore if I'm adjusting an image
| | 00:31 |
and I want there to be a little bit more
color a little more density in the color,
| | 00:35 |
a little more saturation in the color,
then I'll tend to opt toward a slightly
| | 00:39 |
darker version of the image.
I'm not suggesting that you should
| | 00:45 |
drastically darken your images hoping to
get better color, but rather, if you're
| | 00:48 |
sort of balancing between a slightly
darker versus slightly lighter version of
| | 00:52 |
the image, pay attention to color because
you might want to opt for the slightly
| | 00:56 |
darker version to help improve overall
color in the photo.
| | 01:02 |
Let's take a look at an example, I'll go
ahead and add an adjustment layer
| | 01:05 |
button,so I'll click on the Add Adjustment
Layer button, the half black half white
| | 01:08 |
circle icon at the bottom of the layers
panel.
| | 01:11 |
And in this case I'll just use the curves
adjustment, that will add a curves
| | 01:15 |
adjustment layer and you can see I have my
curves controls on the properties panel.
| | 01:20 |
And so I'll scroll down just a little bit
here so I can see the rest of the curve.
| | 01:24 |
And I'm going to click at about the center
point of that curve, and then click and
| | 01:27 |
drag downward and of course that will
darken the image.
| | 01:31 |
Dragging upward will brighten the image.
But I want you to pay attention to what
| | 01:35 |
happens to those colors as I ever so
slightly darken the image.
| | 01:40 |
You'll notice that those colors start to
enrich just a little bit, so we have,
| | 01:44 |
ever-so-slightly, a boost in perceived
saturation, because we have greater
| | 01:48 |
density in those colors.
They don't appear quite as washed out.
| | 01:53 |
So with that anchor point active, I'll now
use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move
| | 01:57 |
that anchor point upward or downward.
And you'll notice that as I move upward, I
| | 02:03 |
start to get a little more washed out
appearance in those colors.
| | 02:07 |
Whereas when I move downward, darkening
the image up a little bit, I get a little
| | 02:10 |
bit better density and therefore a little
bit better perceived saturation in those colors.
| | 02:17 |
Now once again, obviously we're not going
to exaggerate the darkening effect with
| | 02:20 |
the hope of salvaging colors in our
images.
| | 02:23 |
But it's worth bearing in mind that if the
colors appear just a little bit darker,
| | 02:26 |
they'll tend to look like they have a
little bit better saturation.
| | 02:30 |
And so, when you're shifting between a
couple of different variations for an
| | 02:34 |
image, You might want to opt for that
slightly darker version of the image just
| | 02:37 |
to help boost those colors a little bit.
| | 02:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Vibrance vs. Saturation| 00:02 |
Nice, vibrant colors tend to be well
received in a photographic image.
| | 00:06 |
In fact, in most cases I consider good
contrast, good saturation and relatively
| | 00:11 |
warm color values to be among the most
favored attributes of many photographic images.
| | 00:18 |
That's not to say that cool tones, or a
grayscale image or all sorts of other
| | 00:21 |
variations can't be well received and
remarkably beautiful.
| | 00:26 |
Its just to say that we tend to like these
attributes.
| | 00:29 |
And I certainly see a lot of photographers
boosting saturation their images sometimes
| | 00:33 |
a little bit too much.
It's easy to get carried with saturation,
| | 00:37 |
but there's actually an approach you can
take to help ensure that there is a
| | 00:41 |
certain amount of self control built into
your adjustments.
| | 00:45 |
Let's take a look at the Vibrant
adjustment versus the Saturation adjustment.
| | 00:50 |
I will start of by adding Adjustment
layers for both so that it's a little bit
| | 00:53 |
easier first to switch back and forth
between them and see just how
| | 00:56 |
significantly they differ.
I will start off with the Saturation
| | 01:01 |
adjustment, so I will click on the Add
Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of
| | 01:04 |
the Layers panel.
That's the half-black, half-white circle
| | 01:07 |
icon,and I'll choose Hue/Saturation from
that pop-up menu.
| | 01:11 |
I will then immediately add a Vibrance
adjustment by clicking on the same add
| | 01:15 |
Adjustment Layer button and choosing
Vibrance.
| | 01:19 |
Let's start off with the Hue/Saturation
adjustment, since this one preceded the
| | 01:22 |
Vibrance adjustment.
And on the Properties panel, I'm simply
| | 01:26 |
going to increase the value for saturation
all the way to its maximum value of plus 100.
| | 01:33 |
And you can see that we have some rather
silly looking colors in the image.
| | 01:37 |
In essence we've taken all of the colors
and purified them.
| | 01:41 |
We've taken the magenta tones, for
example, and removed all other colors.
| | 01:47 |
In other words, if it's not magenta, that
color gets reduced.
| | 01:50 |
The yellow values, for example, have also
been boosted.
| | 01:53 |
We can see in the propeller sort of a
yellow-orange value.
| | 01:56 |
Those colors have been purified so that
they are very, very intense.
| | 02:01 |
The result is a little bit odd, frankly.
It's not a very good result.
| | 02:05 |
And yet, I see a lot of photographers
pushing saturation way too much.
| | 02:09 |
I'm going to leave this adjustment where
it is, and turn off the Hue/Saturation
| | 02:13 |
Adjustment layer by clicking the Eye icon
to the left of that layer on the Layers panel.
| | 02:18 |
And then I'll click on the thumbnail for
the Vibrance adjustment, and I want to
| | 02:21 |
show you quickly and easily how much
better the Vibrance adjustment really can be.
| | 02:26 |
I'll take that Vibrance slider and drag it
all the way over to the maximum value, and
| | 02:30 |
you'll see that while the colors are a bit
more vibrant, there's a bit more
| | 02:34 |
saturation there.
We don't have the same problems that we
| | 02:39 |
saw with Hue/Saturation.
I'll turn off the visibility of the
| | 02:42 |
Vibrance adjustment.
And you can see that the image looks
| | 02:45 |
reasonably good without this adjustment,
but a little bit drab.
| | 02:48 |
But even with the Vibrance adjustment at
its maximum value, the colors don't look weird.
| | 02:54 |
They certainly look more vibrant; we've
got more saturation in the image but it
| | 02:57 |
hasn't gotten out of hand.
And that's because the Vibrance adjustment
| | 03:01 |
includes a certain degree of self control.
In essence what's happening with the
| | 03:05 |
Vibrant's adjustment.
When we increase vibrants, we're
| | 03:08 |
increasing the saturation for the colors
that are not very saturated without
| | 03:12 |
increasing too much, the saturation for
colors that already were saturated.
| | 03:18 |
In other words we're sort of balancing out
the saturation.
| | 03:21 |
Focusing on the colors that need it the
most.
| | 03:24 |
If we reduce the value for vibrance, then
we're reducing the saturation of colors
| | 03:28 |
that are most heavily saturated, without
neutralizing the colors that have a lesser
| | 03:32 |
degree of saturation.
So, there's a good balance that's
| | 03:36 |
happening when we adjust the saturation of
our images with vibrance.
| | 03:41 |
You'll notice of course that the Vibrance
adjustment also includes a Saturation slider.
| | 03:45 |
I'll go ahead and take that to its extreme
as well, and you can see we certainly have
| | 03:49 |
a strong degree of saturation, but once
again there's some self control built into
| | 03:52 |
the process.
So, the Vibrant adjustment is adjusting
| | 03:57 |
colors in an uneven way, boosting the
saturation for the colors that need it the
| | 04:00 |
most, for example.
Where as the saturation slider for For the
| | 04:04 |
Vibrance adjustment affects the colors
evenly but still with some self control so
| | 04:08 |
we don't get those exaggerated colors.
So, there's a variety of things we can do
| | 04:13 |
with vibrance.
For example, boosting the colors that need
| | 04:16 |
it the most but then toning down the
overall result.
| | 04:20 |
Or toning down the colors that are highly
saturated but then increasing saturation
| | 04:24 |
overall so that we have some saturation.
But not too much for those highly
| | 04:29 |
saturated colors.
In other words, much more control can be
| | 04:32 |
exercised with vibrance.
By contrast if we switch back to our
| | 04:36 |
Saturation adjustment we only have that
one slider and so we don't have any where
| | 04:40 |
near as much control.
It's also worth noting that the Vibrance
| | 04:45 |
adjustment automatically protects skin
tones.
| | 04:48 |
So, if you tend to photograph people a
lot, the Vibrance adjustment is that much better.
| | 04:52 |
Because you can boost vibrance and bring
up the saturation of colors that need it
| | 04:56 |
without over saturiating skin tones.
So, that gives you a pretty good sense of
| | 05:02 |
the difference between the Saturation
slider for Hue/Saturation and the Vibrance
| | 05:06 |
and Saturation sliders for the Vibrance
adjustment.
| | 05:10 |
And probably convinces you that the
Vibrance adjustment is the way to go
| | 05:14 |
whenever you want to either increase or
decrease the intensity of colors in your images.
| | 05:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting with a hint of tint| 00:02 |
Sometimes you may find yourself in the
situation where you know exactly what the
| | 00:05 |
image needs in terms of color, but you're
not necessarily sure exactly how to get there.
| | 00:11 |
For example, you might be able to envision
exactly what color want to add to the
| | 00:14 |
image to get to where you're trying to go.
But you don't know what the best method of
| | 00:20 |
getting there is.
In those types of situations you may want
| | 00:23 |
to take a look at the photo filter
adjustment.
| | 00:26 |
Let's take a look at how we can quickly
apply a little bit of color to an image
| | 00:30 |
using the photo filter adjustment.
I'll start off by going to the bottom of
| | 00:34 |
the layers panel and click on the half
black half white circle icon the add
| | 00:37 |
adjustment layer button.
And from the popup that appears I'm going
| | 00:42 |
to choose.
Photo Filter.
| | 00:43 |
That will add a photo filter adjustment
layer on the Layers panel, and provide me
| | 00:47 |
with a set of controls on the Properties
panel, and you can already see we have a
| | 00:51 |
tremendous improvement in this image.
I'll turn off the visibility for the photo
| | 00:56 |
filter adjustment layer by clicking on the
eye icon to the left of the thumbnail for
| | 01:00 |
that layer on the Layers panel, and then
I'll click one more time in that spot And
| | 01:03 |
I'll toggle this layer off and on, and you
can see that we've added just a little bit
| | 01:07 |
of warming a little bit of an orangish,
slightly yellowish color.
| | 01:13 |
And that has made a tremendous improvement
in the color for this photo.
| | 01:18 |
Let's take a look at exactly what's
happening here.
| | 01:21 |
On the properties panel, you'll see that
the filter option is selected.
| | 01:25 |
And we have a pop up here where we can
choose from a variety of different colored filters.
| | 01:30 |
So at the moment I have the warming filter
85 selected.
| | 01:34 |
I can also choose the warming filter LBA,
or AD1.
| | 01:38 |
These are different strengths of warming
filters.
| | 01:41 |
Or I could choose a cooling filter if I'm
trying to get a moonlit night Type of look
| | 01:44 |
with this image.
I can cycle through the various options there.
| | 01:49 |
I can also choose a variety of different
colors.
| | 01:52 |
So I have orange.
I have violet.
| | 01:54 |
I have sepia, a variety of different
colors.
| | 01:57 |
There's even an underwater option if
you're trying to create an underwater look
| | 02:00 |
for a particular scene.
But those are all, of course, just colors.
| | 02:04 |
You may notice that as I choose an option
from the pop up, the color swatch down
| | 02:08 |
below reflects the color that is being
selected.
| | 02:12 |
So, when I choose the 81 warming filter,
you'll see exactly what color that reflects.
| | 02:18 |
And, as such, I can also change the color.
So I'll choose the Color option.
| | 02:23 |
And then click the color swatch in order
to bring up the color picker.
| | 02:26 |
And let's assume that I wanted to shift
this a little bit toward red.
| | 02:30 |
I can drag the hue slider down just a
little bit.
| | 02:33 |
And you'll see that we now have gone to
more of a pure orange, or a red orange
| | 02:37 |
kind of a value.
And that has changed the appearance of the
| | 02:41 |
image as well.
Or I can choose a green value, a blue
| | 02:44 |
value, a violet value, anything I like, I
can use any color of the rainbow.
| | 02:49 |
But in this case I think I'll stick with
an orange sort of value, I can adjust the
| | 02:53 |
overall saturation.
Dragging to the left in the larger
| | 02:56 |
gradient to reduce saturation or to the
right to increase saturation.
| | 03:00 |
I can also adjust the brightness of the
color but that will tend to have a
| | 03:04 |
relatively modest effect on the overall
result you'll achieve.
| | 03:08 |
This looks to be pretty good I'll go ahead
and click the OK button.
| | 03:12 |
But then we could also adjust the density.
If we reduce the density, we're getting
| | 03:16 |
back closer to the original image.
In other words, before we added the photo
| | 03:20 |
filter adjustment at all, and if I
increase the value, I'm adding a stronger
| | 03:24 |
and stronger filter effect.
In other words, adding density to the
| | 03:28 |
filter, you might say, if we assume that
we had a colored filter on the front of
| | 03:31 |
our lens, for example.
Of course, in most cases, it won't take
| | 03:35 |
very much to achieve a warming effect
effect or a cooling effect, depending on
| | 03:38 |
the image.
And, generally, it's best to not apply too
| | 03:43 |
strong an effect.
Certainly, once you've applied an
| | 03:46 |
adjustment here you'll want to turn off
the adjustment and turn it back on again
| | 03:49 |
so that you can get a better sense of
exactly what you're accomplishing.
| | 03:53 |
You'll also notice that down below we have
a preserve luminosity checkbox, and
| | 03:57 |
generally speaking I leave that option
turned on when I'm working with the photo
| | 04:01 |
filter adjustment, because, more often
than not I simply want to affect the color
| | 04:05 |
values within the image without adjusting
the perceived luminosity.
| | 04:11 |
But when we add light to the image, so
when I brighten up one or more of the
| | 04:14 |
color channels in order to shift the color
in one direction.
| | 04:19 |
That's also going to brighten up the
overall appearance of the image.
| | 04:22 |
And so with this check box turned on.
PhotoShop will automatically compensate
| | 04:26 |
with further adjustments so that we're
adding color, but not changing the overall tonality.
| | 04:32 |
So in this case, for example warming up
the image without brightening at the same time.
| | 04:37 |
In this way you can continue fine-tuning
the effect, but obviously, the Photo
| | 04:40 |
Filter adjustment makes it very easy when
you just want to add a little bit of a
| | 04:44 |
certain color to improve the appearance of
an image.
| | 04:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Achieving a neutral gray| 00:02 |
More often than not, I'd prefer to adjust
color in my images based on a visual evaluation.
| | 00:07 |
In other words, I'm just looking at the
image and trusting my eyes to ensure I'm
| | 00:11 |
getting the best color possible.
Usually that means accurate color, but at
| | 00:15 |
least I'll be achieving the most pleasing
color, or so I hope.
| | 00:19 |
But sometimes I would like a little extra
help to ensure that I'm getting a neutral
| | 00:23 |
value for certain areas of the photo.
For example, here we have a cruise ship
| | 00:28 |
under cloudy skies.
The scene was certainly a bit cool.
| | 00:32 |
The color tones were a little bit toward
the cyans and blues.
| | 00:36 |
But I must not of had the best color
temperature setting established on my
| | 00:39 |
camera because the color is looking pretty
off.
| | 00:42 |
Now, I know the cruise ship is white and
even though there were relatively cool
| | 00:45 |
conditions, I'd like that ship to appear
neutral.
| | 00:48 |
In other words white or a bright shade of
gray at least.
| | 00:52 |
Let's take a look at how we can use
information from the image, to determine
| | 00:55 |
how much of an adjustment we really need
and in what direction we need to take that adjustment.
| | 01:01 |
I'll start off by bringing up the Info
panel, I'll go to the Window menu and then
| | 01:04 |
choose Info.
Note that you can also press F8 to bring
| | 01:08 |
up the Info panel.
And with that panel pulled up, you'll see
| | 01:11 |
that as I move my mouse over the image,
I'm able to view RGB values at the top
| | 01:15 |
left of the Info panel for the specific
pixel that is under my mouse right now.
| | 01:21 |
So, you can see for example, that the red
value is relatively low, the green value
| | 01:25 |
is a little bit high and we can think of
the blue value as sort of the middle value.
| | 01:31 |
And so, with a low red value, of course we
have a little bit of cyan and with a high
| | 01:34 |
green value, we have a bit of green.
So, we have a sense already of which
| | 01:39 |
direction we might want to take our
adjustments.
| | 01:42 |
However, I'd like to take things a bit
further, I'd like to be able to refine my
| | 01:45 |
adjustment while I'm observing values on
the Info panel and for that I'm going to
| | 01:49 |
use a color sampler.
So, I'll go to the toolbox and click and
| | 01:54 |
hold my mouse over the Eyedropper tool,
that will bring up a fly out menu, and
| | 01:57 |
from that menu I will choose the Color
Sampler tool.
| | 02:02 |
I'll then move my mouse out over the image
and I'll click in an area that I would
| | 02:06 |
like to establish as a neutral value.
In this case, just the side of the ship.
| | 02:12 |
I think I'll also click to add an
additional Color Sampler up at the bow in
| | 02:14 |
this slightly darker area, where there's
some shadow.
| | 02:18 |
Just so I can monitor a couple of values
at the same time.
| | 02:22 |
Now, if you look on the Info panel you'll
see that I have an indication for both of
| | 02:25 |
those color samplers that I placed on the
image.
| | 02:29 |
And so, I'll be able to evaluate those
numbers in real time as I'm applying my adjustment.
| | 02:34 |
In this case, a color balance adjustment
is called for so, I'll go to the Layers
| | 02:37 |
panel and down at the bottom I'll click on
the half black half white circle icon.
| | 02:42 |
The Add Adjustment Layer button and choose
Color Balance from the pop up menu that appears.
| | 02:46 |
At this point, you'll notice that I have
two values for each of those color
| | 02:50 |
samplers on the Info panel.
The values to the left are the before
| | 02:54 |
values, the values that I started with and
the values to the right are the after
| | 02:57 |
values, the values based on the adjustment
that I'm applying.
| | 03:01 |
Of course at the moment, for both of these
color samplers we see the exact same values.
| | 03:06 |
Because I've not yet applied an
adjustment.
| | 03:09 |
But let's go ahead and get started with
that adjustment.
| | 03:12 |
We can see that the red value is a little
bit low compared to the other values.
| | 03:16 |
Now, to achieve a neutral gray result, I
need all three of these values to be the same.
| | 03:21 |
And so, I need to increase the value for
red, and to do that of course, I'll simply
| | 03:24 |
drag the cyan red slider over toward the
right.
| | 03:28 |
To establish a positive value, which will
increase the amount of red in the image.
| | 03:33 |
And as I do so, you can already see that
we're getting a more neutral result.
| | 03:38 |
In this case, I'll bring the red value up
to a level that matches the blue value,
| | 03:42 |
and then I'm going to bring the green
level down to match.
| | 03:46 |
So, at the moment, I have 138 established
for both red and blue and I just need to
| | 03:50 |
reduce the green value down to 138 as
well.
| | 03:54 |
You will notice for my second color
sampler, the red and blue values also
| | 03:57 |
match in this case with a value of 61,
since the second color sample is in a
| | 04:01 |
slightly darker area.
So, I'm ready to bring down the green
| | 04:06 |
value and that means shifting the color a
little bit toward magenta.
| | 04:11 |
It shouldn't take too much of an
adjustment.
| | 04:13 |
But as I shift the slider over to the
left, you'll notice that the red and blue
| | 04:16 |
values are also changing.
And that's making it a little bit
| | 04:20 |
difficult to establish a neutral value.
It's a little bit more difficult to
| | 04:24 |
achieve a balance, when all three values
are changing at the same time.
| | 04:28 |
The reason for that is that I have the
Preserve Luminosity check box turned on.
| | 04:32 |
And that means that, while I'm only
adjusting a single slider affecting a
| | 04:36 |
single channel for the image, Photoshop is
adjusting all three channels in order to
| | 04:40 |
maintain the perceived luminosity for the
overall image.
| | 04:45 |
So, to make my job of adjusting the color
to achieve a neutral value a little
| | 04:49 |
easier, I'm going to turn off the Preserve
Luminosity check box.
| | 04:55 |
At this point now we can see that our
values for red and blue still match for
| | 04:58 |
the initial color sampler that I added,
and I just need to reduce the value for
| | 05:01 |
green, in other words, shift toward
magenta.
| | 05:06 |
And now you'll notice that only that one
value is being affected, only the green
| | 05:09 |
value in this case.
So, at this point I've achieved a neutral
| | 05:13 |
gray for this side of the ship but I've
not achieved a neutral gray for the shadow
| | 05:17 |
area at the bow of the ship.
You can see that the blue value is a
| | 05:21 |
little bit higher then the red value and
that the green value is lowest of all.
| | 05:26 |
And that indicates that that shadow area
is a little bit magenta, it has a little
| | 05:30 |
bit of a purplish tint to it.
But of course shadows are often going to
| | 05:35 |
reflect some relatively cool values.
And bear in mind also that that bow is at
| | 05:38 |
an angle where it's going to pick up
reflections from the water.
| | 05:42 |
And the water of course in turn is picking
up reflections from the sky and with that
| | 05:45 |
cloud cover, I wouldn't be surprised at
all to see a bit of magenta.
| | 05:49 |
And so, in this case I think the side of
the ship is the better area to evaluate in
| | 05:53 |
terms of achieving a perfectly neutral
value.
| | 05:57 |
Now, of course just because that area is
neutral, doesn't mean it should be neutral.
| | 06:02 |
Perhaps I want to take things a little bit
of a step further, maybe I want to warm
| | 06:06 |
things up a little bit.
In many cases, when I'm trying to achieve
| | 06:10 |
a neutral gray value in an image, I'll
then decide that I don't want it to be
| | 06:13 |
perfectly neutral.
But establishing that value as a perfectly
| | 06:17 |
neutral value, gives me a very good
starting point.
| | 06:21 |
So, I might want to for example, shift a
little bit toward yellow just to warm up
| | 06:25 |
the image a little bit, shifting away from
that perfectly neutral value.
| | 06:30 |
But having started there with a neutral
gray, I have a much better starting point
| | 06:33 |
and therefore it will be a little bit
easier to achieve the result I'm looking for.
| | 06:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing strong color casts| 00:02 |
If you ever find yourself looking at an
image that has a very strong color cast, I
| | 00:05 |
have a technique that will help you really
speed up the process of correcting color
| | 00:09 |
in those images.
Here I've a photo from an old family album
| | 00:14 |
and the image has faded over time causing
it to shift to a sort of like magenta
| | 00:19 |
color cast, a rather strong one, and so
I'd like to apply an adjustment to correct that.
| | 00:27 |
And in just a few simple steps I can do
that very, very effectively.
| | 00:31 |
I'm going to start off by creating a copy
of my background image layer, and so I'll
| | 00:34 |
drag the thumbnail for that background
layer, down to the create new layer
| | 00:37 |
button, the blank sheet of paper icon at
the bottom of the Layers panel.
| | 00:43 |
What I want to do first is to figure out
what is the color of the color cast.
| | 00:48 |
And in a situation where you have a very
strong color cast, in essence the average
| | 00:52 |
pixel value for the image will represent
what that color cast is.
| | 00:56 |
And so to determine the average color of
all pixels within this photo, I'll go to
| | 01:01 |
the Filter menu and then choose Blur,
followed by Average.
| | 01:05 |
And that will blur the image in essence,
so much that the color we end with will be
| | 01:09 |
only a single color representing the
average color within the image.
| | 01:15 |
And as soon as I choose that option, you
can see that that average color sure
| | 01:18 |
enough is a sort of magenta type of a
color.
| | 01:21 |
So this is, in essence, the color of the
color cast in the photo.
| | 01:26 |
And so I want to move the color for this
image into the opposite direction.
| | 01:31 |
Well, that means I need to know what the
opposite color actually is.
| | 01:35 |
And so I'll simply invert this particular
image, the background copy layer.
| | 01:40 |
So I'll go to the image menu, and then
I'll choose Adjustments, followed by Invert.
| | 01:46 |
I could also press Ctrl+I on Windows or
Cmd+I on Macintosh in order to choose that
| | 01:50 |
Invert command.
And you see that I have now a shade of
| | 01:54 |
sort of green and since green and magenta
are opposites, that certainly makes sense.
| | 02:00 |
This is the opposite of that average color
in the image, and so this is the color
| | 02:03 |
that I want to apply to the image in order
to compensate for the color cast.
| | 02:09 |
And what that means is I want to use this
color to change the color of the
| | 02:13 |
underlying image.
Well, there's a blend mode that allows us
| | 02:17 |
to do exactly that.
And so for my background copy layer, I'll
| | 02:21 |
go to the top of the Layers panel, and
from the blend mode pop up, the default
| | 02:24 |
value is normal.
I'm going to choose Color so that this
| | 02:28 |
background copy layer will only affect the
color of the underlying image.
| | 02:34 |
And as soon as I change that option,
you'll see that the tonal variations, in
| | 02:37 |
other words the texture, of the underlying
image now show through.
| | 02:42 |
So, I have compensated for that strong
color cast.
| | 02:46 |
The only problem is I've overcompensated
for the color cast.
| | 02:49 |
I've taken things a little too far because
I have completely applied this green color
| | 02:53 |
tint to the image.
What I need to do is tone things down just
| | 02:57 |
a little bit.
And so I'll go to the top of the Layers
| | 03:00 |
panel and click on the Opacity popup and
drag that slider over toward the left.
| | 03:05 |
In most cases you'll find that a value of
right around 50% will produce the best
| | 03:09 |
result, because that's where we're going
to be balancing the two, the original
| | 03:13 |
color cast and the opposite of that color
cast.
| | 03:17 |
But the specific value you need to use may
vary just a little bit.
| | 03:21 |
But you can see in this case that we've
achieved quite a good result.
| | 03:25 |
I'll turn off the visibility for that
background copy layer.
| | 03:28 |
Then turn it back on again, and you see
that we have much improved color.
| | 03:32 |
Now, of course, this is an old faded
photo, so it could use a little bit of a
| | 03:35 |
boost in saturation, maybe a little bit
more contrast, and some other adjustments.
| | 03:40 |
But in terms of that basic color problem,
we've made huge progress with very little effort.
| | 03:45 |
Simply make a copy of that background
image layer and apply the average blur filter.
| | 03:50 |
Invert the layer, change the blend mode to
color, and adjust opacity as needed.
| | 03:55 |
It's also a good idea, in general, to name
the layers that you're creating in this fashion.
| | 04:00 |
And so I'll go ahead and double-click on
the background copy layer's name, and
| | 04:03 |
change this to something more meaningful.
I'll just call it color fix, and then
| | 04:07 |
press Enter or return on the keyboard to
apply that change.
| | 04:11 |
But, there you have it, a quick and easy
fix for what seems like it would be a very
| | 04:15 |
daunting color challenge.
| | 04:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Focused Color CorrectionsBalancing a specific color| 00:02 |
In some cases, you may want to apply a
color adjustment that only affects a
| | 00:05 |
single range of color values within an
image.
| | 00:09 |
In this case, for example, I have a
photograph of the interior of a rowboat,
| | 00:13 |
and the bench and the oars are relatively
yellow.
| | 00:17 |
And the boat itself is a shade of blue or
perhaps a little bit cyan.
| | 00:22 |
And if I want to adjust only the boat
itself, just that blue to cyan range of
| | 00:25 |
color values, you might assume that I have
a bit of a challenge ahead of me.
| | 00:30 |
Perhaps I need to make a selection of just
those blue areas and apply a targeted
| | 00:34 |
adjustment to just that selected area.
But there's actually a much easier way to
| | 00:39 |
apply color adjustments that only affect a
specific range of colors within an image.
| | 00:44 |
And the tools for that is the
Hue/Saturation adjustment.
| | 00:49 |
Let's take a look at how we can work with
Hue/Saturation in this way.
| | 00:51 |
I'll start off by going to the bottom of
the Layers panel and clicking on the Add
| | 00:55 |
Adjustment Layer button.
The half-black, half-white circle icon.
| | 01:00 |
And from the pop-up I'll choose
Hue/Saturation.
| | 01:03 |
That will add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment
layer and provide me with the
| | 01:06 |
Hue/Saturation Adjustment controls on the
Properties panel.
| | 01:11 |
Of course, by default when I apply any
change with Hue/Saturation, I'm affecting
| | 01:15 |
the entire image.
So, for example, as I shift the hue around
| | 01:19 |
here, you see that all colors in the image
are being affected.
| | 01:23 |
But that's because I'm working on the
master channel, in other words, I'm
| | 01:27 |
working on the overall image but if I
click the Popup, I can actually choose to
| | 01:31 |
adjust a specific range of color values.
In this case, I'm not sure if the colors I
| | 01:38 |
want to adjust here are more of the cyans
or the blues.
| | 01:42 |
I think I'll opt for cyans because those
colors do seem a little more cyan than
| | 01:45 |
blue to me.
So, I'll choose Cyans, in this case, from
| | 01:49 |
that popup menu.
And then I'll apply an exaggerated
| | 01:53 |
adjustment using saturation.
And you'll see if I fully desaturate those
| | 01:57 |
colors, I'm not quite having the intended
effect.
| | 02:01 |
I chose cyans, and so I assumed that
desaturating completely would cause all of
| | 02:06 |
the cyan values to become pure gray.
Well, in fact that's exactly what happened
| | 02:12 |
its just that Photoshop's idea of cyan
doesn't include every single shade of cyan
| | 02:17 |
or blue that is present in this particular
image.
| | 02:22 |
So, I need to change the definition of
cyan as it were so that Photoshop will
| | 02:25 |
affect a broader range of color values
within the image.
| | 02:30 |
I'll start off by making sure that I have
an exaggerated adjustment applied to the image.
| | 02:35 |
For images that are relatively high in
saturation, I'll reduce saturation.
| | 02:40 |
And for images that are relatively low in
saturation I'll boost the saturation.
| | 02:44 |
But the idea is just to have the
adjustment stand out pretty clearly.
| | 02:47 |
In other words, I want it to be very easy
to know when I've specified the correct
| | 02:52 |
range of colors that I'm trying to adjust.
We can see, which colors are being
| | 02:57 |
affected from the preview gradients down
at the bottom of the Properties panel.
| | 03:02 |
And in this case because the colors I'm
working with are cyan.
| | 03:05 |
The adjustment controls here, the preview
options are actually straddling both ends
| | 03:09 |
of the ribbons here, of the gradients that
we see.
| | 03:13 |
In this case, because I'm working with
cyans, you'll notice a light shade of gray
| | 03:17 |
along the cyans here.
As well as over on the far right where the
| | 03:21 |
cyans continue.
And then what I'll call a medium shade of
| | 03:24 |
gray outside of that light shade of gray.
There are then a couple of handles at the
| | 03:28 |
outside of those medium gray sections.
And then in between the handles or outside
| | 03:34 |
of that range of colors is a darker gray
value.
| | 03:37 |
Well, the light gray value represents
colors that are being completely effected
| | 03:41 |
by this hue saturation adjustment.
The transition range or the medium gray
| | 03:45 |
values are those that are being partially
affected.
| | 03:49 |
In other words, the adjustment is tapering
off as we get further and further away
| | 03:53 |
from the range of colors that are being
completely affected.
| | 03:57 |
Once we reach those handles, and we cross
over to where the dark gray appears.
| | 04:02 |
Those are the colors that are not being
effected at all.
| | 04:05 |
So, you can see the cyan colors are being
effected completely.
| | 04:09 |
The adjustment then tapers off for the
green values and the blue values.
| | 04:13 |
But we can adjust the range of colors
directly with these controls.
| | 04:18 |
If I want to maintain the degree of
transition, I can point my mouse.
| | 04:22 |
At that medium gray area that defines the
transition and then click and drag, in
| | 04:26 |
this case outward, to expand the range.
In other words, I'm making the lighter
| | 04:32 |
gray area that defines the colors being
effected a little bit larger.
| | 04:36 |
I could take that further.
In fact I could stretch this all the way
| | 04:39 |
out into the magentas, the reds, the
oranges, and the yellows, so that
| | 04:42 |
ultimately I might be effecting all colors
within the image.
| | 04:47 |
But in this case, I want to effect just
the cyans and blues found in the boat.
| | 04:52 |
And so, I just need to expand that range
just enough so that with that exaggerated
| | 04:56 |
adjustment applied I can see when I'm
effecting the correct range.
| | 05:01 |
If I need to I can also adjust the range
of transition so I can grab that handle
| | 05:05 |
and then click and drag to enhance that
transition.
| | 05:10 |
In other words spread it out into other
colors or I can tighten up that transition
| | 05:14 |
so that I'm not accidentally bleeding off
into other colors, for example.
| | 05:19 |
But in this case, just by stretching out
that range of cyans to go out into the
| | 05:23 |
blues a little more I've ended up with
what appears to be a very good result.
| | 05:29 |
I'll go ahead and bring up the Saturation
slider up to a more appropriate level and
| | 05:32 |
just so that we can see the effect, I'll
shift the hue through some wild
| | 05:35 |
permutation here.
And you can see that I'm only effecting
| | 05:40 |
the blues in the boat or the cyan values
in the boat without affecting any of the
| | 05:43 |
other colors throughout the photo.
And in this way, I can now apply whatever
| | 05:48 |
adjustment it is that I intended to apply.
I can use the Hue slider to effectively
| | 05:53 |
change the color.
Now, obviously I can create some wild
| | 05:57 |
results, but in most cases I would just
apply a slight shift.
| | 06:01 |
Maybe I want to take those values a little
closer to green.
| | 06:05 |
Or a little bit closer to blue.
I can also adjust the saturation.
| | 06:09 |
Boosting the saturation for those areas or
toning down the saturation a little bit,
| | 06:12 |
if that's what I decide is warranted.
And I can even use lightness.
| | 06:17 |
Although lightness is sort of like adding
white or adding black.
| | 06:21 |
It tends to really mute the colors or tone
down the contrast in the image.
| | 06:25 |
It gives it a sort of washed out
appearance in most cases.
| | 06:28 |
And so, I prefer to leave the lightness
slider alone.
| | 06:31 |
But you can see by identifying a specific
range of colors within the image that I
| | 06:35 |
want to effect.
I can then adjust the appearance of that
| | 06:38 |
particular range of colors using primarily
the Hue and Saturation sliders perhaps
| | 06:42 |
with just a little bit of the lightness
slider as well.
| | 06:46 |
I could repeat this for other color
values, for example I could switch to the
| | 06:50 |
yellows and then apply and adjustment that
affects only the yellow tones.
| | 06:54 |
In this case the bench and perhaps the
oars, for example, in order to truly
| | 06:57 |
optimize the colors and to optimize those
colors individually in various areas of
| | 07:01 |
the photo.
| | 07:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Eliminating a problem color| 00:02 |
color very often provides a motivation for
capturing an image in the first place.
| | 00:05 |
For example, here these small, little
icebergs were reflecting quite a bit of
| | 00:10 |
cyan light, and it really was quite
remarkable.
| | 00:14 |
And yet at times color can also be a
little bit of a distraction.
| | 00:17 |
Even if it's a subtle color, it can be a
little distracting if it's not a color
| | 00:21 |
that is pleasing in the image.
In this case for example, the water in the
| | 00:26 |
background here looks just a little bit
too blue to magenta, sort of a slightly
| | 00:30 |
purplish tone.
It's very, very subtle but it's there.
| | 00:34 |
And I think if I were to tone that down a
little bit it would really bring out the
| | 00:38 |
cyan tones in the ice.
So let's take a look how we can tone down
| | 00:42 |
a problem color in an image.
I'll start off by adding a Hue/Saturation
| | 00:47 |
adjustment layer, because ultimately I
think I'm going to want to reduce saturation.
| | 00:52 |
And specifically, to reduce saturation for
a specific range of color values.
| | 00:56 |
So, I'll start off by going to the bottom
of the Layers panel and clicking on the
| | 00:59 |
Add Adjustment Layer button.
And then choosing Hue Saturation from the
| | 01:04 |
pop-up menu.
By default, the Hue Saturation adjustment
| | 01:07 |
affects all colors throughout the entire
image.
| | 01:09 |
but i just want to focus my adjustment on
a specific range of colors.
| | 01:13 |
Specifically, whichever color happens to
be up in that water, up toward the top of
| | 01:17 |
the image and to some extent over toward
the bottom right as well.
| | 01:22 |
I think those color values are probably
blue.
| | 01:24 |
I can increase the saturation
significantly for the over all image to
| | 01:27 |
verify that.
And sure enough we see a fair amount of
| | 01:30 |
blue and maybe just a tiny bit of magenta
in there as well.
| | 01:33 |
So I'll go ahead and reset the adjustment
and now I know that I want to start off
| | 01:37 |
with blues.
And so all choose blues from the pop-up
| | 01:41 |
menu so that I'm affecting only the blues,
not the entire image.
| | 01:45 |
I'll go ahead and increase the saturation
once again, so that we can see which
| | 01:48 |
portion of the image we are effecting.
And you can see I am essentially effecting
| | 01:53 |
the entire image.
So, with this exaggerated adjustment, I am
| | 01:57 |
going to fine tune the range of color
values.
| | 02:00 |
So we are only adjusting the specific
colors that I am concerned about.
| | 02:04 |
We can see which range of colors are
currently being effected with the color
| | 02:07 |
gradients down below.
The light gray which highlights the blue
| | 02:10 |
range of the color values here indicates
the range of colors that are completely
| | 02:14 |
being affected by my adjustment.
The slightly darker grey areas to either
| | 02:19 |
side of that light grey area indicates the
range of transition.
| | 02:23 |
In other words, while the colors
affiliated with that light grey area are
| | 02:26 |
being completely affected.
The colors in the darker grey area are
| | 02:29 |
being affected partially with the
adjustment tapering off as we get further
| | 02:32 |
away from from that light gray area.
You'll then see that there are handles
| | 02:36 |
that indicate the end of that transition.
And the dark gray area that we see
| | 02:39 |
represents colors that are not being
affected at all.
| | 02:45 |
So in this case I want to tighten up the
transition so that this cyan range is not
| | 02:49 |
being included in this adjustment.
So I'll click and grab that handle and
| | 02:54 |
drag it over to the right.
And right about there seems to be a good result.
| | 03:00 |
You can see that we're only affecting the
blue range now, without affecting those cyans.
| | 03:05 |
I'm also going to expand the range a
little bit just to make sure we're getting
| | 03:09 |
all of the magenta tones in there.
And so I'll click in the darker grey are
| | 03:13 |
because I want to maintain the same degree
of transition.
| | 03:16 |
I just want to move that entire construct
over to the right, so that we're affecting
| | 03:20 |
more colors.
Specifically, more blues and magenta's.
| | 03:24 |
In fact in this particular case, I could
keep expanding almost forever, because
| | 03:28 |
there are no other colors within the
photo.
| | 03:31 |
But I'll just expand it to include the
magenta's, just to make sure that were
| | 03:34 |
affecting that range of color values.
And of course, now we can see that within
| | 03:38 |
the image.
I'm only affecting those blues, and the
| | 03:41 |
small amount of magentas, not the cyans.
So now, instead of having this exaggerated
| | 03:47 |
increase in saturation, I want to tone
down the saturation.
| | 03:51 |
If I take it all the way down to minus
100, then we should see no color at all in
| | 03:54 |
those areas in the background.
I don't think I want to remove the color altogether.
| | 03:59 |
But I do want to tone it down rather
signifigantly.
| | 04:02 |
So maybe somewhere around there will work
well.
| | 04:05 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the visibility
for the hue saturation adjustment layer on
| | 04:08 |
the Layers panel.
And you can see now we have that slightly
| | 04:11 |
purplish tint caused by the additional
blue that was there.
| | 04:14 |
When I turn that adjustment back on,
you'll see that we have a shift, a rather
| | 04:18 |
significant shift toward a more neutral
value.
| | 04:22 |
And so by identifying a specific range of
color values, and then reducing the
| | 04:26 |
saturation for that range.
I've been able to tone down a color that I
| | 04:30 |
felt was a little bit distracting in this
particular image.
| | 04:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recovering color detail| 00:02 |
I hear a lot of talk among photographers
about exposure.
| | 00:05 |
And usually what I hear is talk about the
highlight values, or clipping of the highlights.
| | 00:11 |
And specifically, photographers want to
avoid in most cases, losing highlight detail.
| | 00:17 |
But that suggests that you only lose
detail if you expose so brightly that the
| | 00:21 |
brightest areas become pure white.
And that's not exactly entirely true.
| | 00:27 |
In fact, it's very possible that you could
lose detail in an image by overexposing
| | 00:31 |
only one channel.
What does that mean exactly?
| | 00:35 |
Well, in a situation like this, here I
have an image where there are largely
| | 00:39 |
reds, yellows, oranges, relatively warm
values, but nothing that's especially bright.
| | 00:46 |
In other words I don't have to worry about
losing highlight detail really I'm not
| | 00:50 |
going to overexpose and blow out something
to completely pure white.
| | 00:55 |
And yet detail has been lost or at least
perceived detail has been lost.
| | 01:00 |
Let's first take a look at the histogram
to get a better sense of what's going on
| | 01:02 |
with this image.
I'll go ahead and choose window histogram
| | 01:06 |
from the menu.
In order to bring up the histogram display.
| | 01:10 |
I'll click the Alert button to refresh, so
that I'm not working just based on cached data.
| | 01:16 |
And you'll notice that there's some rather
interesting things about this histogram.
| | 01:21 |
There is virtually no blue light in this
image, very, very little, there's a
| | 01:25 |
reasonable amount of green light, but
there is a lot of red light.
| | 01:30 |
Now, in this particular case, that red
light has not actually been over exposed,
| | 01:34 |
but the result, the effect that I'm
getting in the image is not that far off.
| | 01:39 |
From what I would expect if I had blown
out the red channel.
| | 01:43 |
And by blown out the red channel, what I
mean is, the exposure was so bright that
| | 01:47 |
detail gets lost on the red channel even
though I don't have a pure white value.
| | 01:53 |
In fact, you can see that the brightest
pixel on the blue channel seems to be down
| | 01:57 |
here somewhere.
And the brightest pixel on the green
| | 02:01 |
channel is over here.
Which means I would have to increase this
| | 02:04 |
exposure very, very significantly to end
up with a pure white.
| | 02:09 |
You can get a better sense of that on the
luminosity channel here.
| | 02:13 |
We would really have to increase the
exposure by at least a couple of stops
| | 02:16 |
before we would see a white value.
And yet, we would not have to increase the
| | 02:21 |
exposure very much at all to lose color
detail.
| | 02:24 |
And, from a visual standpoint in terms of
perception, I think we have lost some
| | 02:28 |
detail, or at least we're losing a little
bit of detail visually.
| | 02:33 |
That doesn't need to have been lost.
I'll go ahead and close that histogram
| | 02:36 |
panel, and then I'm going to show you how
we can bring back much more detail or at
| | 02:40 |
least, the perception of more detail, in
this image with a very simple adjustment.
| | 02:45 |
I'm going to add a hue saturation
adjustment.
| | 02:48 |
So I'll go to the bottom of the layers
panel and click on the.
| | 02:50 |
Add Adjustment Layer button, the half
black, half circle icon.
| | 02:54 |
And I'll choose hue saturation from the
pop up menu that appears.
| | 02:57 |
In order to add a hue saturation
adjustment.
| | 03:00 |
And then I'll simply reduce the value for
saturation.
| | 03:04 |
And you'll notice that the color starts to
get toned down rather significantly.
| | 03:09 |
And the appearance of detail has actually
increased.
| | 03:13 |
I'll turn off the visibility for this
adjustment, and then turn it back on.
| | 03:16 |
And you can see there's quite a bit more
detail present within the image.
| | 03:20 |
And so, just by toning down those colors
that were a little bit too hot, we're
| | 03:23 |
improving the perceived quality of the
image.
| | 03:27 |
I'll go ahead and bring that saturation
slider up just a little bit, but right
| | 03:30 |
about there, I think, works pretty well.
I do have some other adjustments I would
| | 03:34 |
need to apply for For this image, but just
by reducing saturation we're toning down
| | 03:38 |
those colors to bring out a little bit
more perceived detail.
| | 03:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Neutralizing highlights and shadows| 00:02 |
When the color seems less than accurate in
a photo you may of course want to shift
| | 00:05 |
the color balance.
But sometimes you can achieve a shift in
| | 00:09 |
color balance while at the same time
ensuring that the highlights and shadows
| | 00:13 |
are perfectly neutral as well.
And that can be very helpful when you want
| | 00:18 |
Want to make sure that the brightest or
darkest areas of the image or both are
| | 00:21 |
perfectly neutral without any color to
them at all.
| | 00:25 |
Here for example, I have some relatively
dark areas up at the top of this light
| | 00:29 |
bulb mount.
And then at the bottom of the light bulb,
| | 00:32 |
there's some bright reflections.
And I'd like to make sure that those
| | 00:35 |
remain neutral.
While I'm adjusting the overall color in
| | 00:38 |
the image.
And for this I can apply a levels or
| | 00:41 |
curves adjustment working on the
individual channels within the image.
| | 00:46 |
Lets take a look at how we can accomplish
that.
| | 00:48 |
I'll start off by clicking on the Add
Adjustment layer button.
| | 00:51 |
At the bottom of the layers panel.
And then in this case I'll use levels.
| | 00:55 |
I could just as easily use curves.
When I do that a level adjustment's layer
| | 00:59 |
will be added on the layers panel.
And you can see we now have the levels
| | 01:03 |
controls on the property's panel as well.
At the moment, we're looking at the RGB channel.
| | 01:08 |
In other words a composite of all of the
information contained in the image.
| | 01:12 |
But in this case I want to focus on the
individual color channels.
| | 01:15 |
I want to shift the values for red, green,
and blue individually so that we end up
| | 01:19 |
with neutral values for the brightest and
darkest areas of the image.
| | 01:24 |
I'll go ahead and choose the red value,
for example.
| | 01:27 |
And you can see that there's a little bit
of a gap over toward the right side of the histogram.
| | 01:32 |
And so I'm going to bring the white point
inward.
| | 01:35 |
If I were working on the RGB channel on
the composite channel, as it were, that
| | 01:38 |
would mean that I'm simply shifting all
three channels evenly in order to
| | 01:41 |
establish a white value.
But in doing that, I'm not necessarily
| | 01:46 |
achieving a truly neutral value for the
brightest areas of the image.
| | 01:50 |
So by working individually on these
channels, we're achieving that result.
| | 01:54 |
I'm going to use the clipping preview
display, so I can see when I'm actually
| | 01:57 |
losing detail in the image.
For each of these channels.
| | 02:00 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh while adjusting
| | 02:04 |
that white point.
And then when I drag in, you'll see that
| | 02:08 |
pixels start to appear, indicating that
detail is being lost, because I'm
| | 02:12 |
essentially blowing out the highlights.
In this case, just blowing them out in the
| | 02:17 |
context of a single channel.
So just the red information essentially.
| | 02:21 |
So what I'll do is, adjust until pixels
show up, but then back off on that
| | 02:25 |
adjustment, moving the slider back toward
the right, until I have just a couple of
| | 02:29 |
pixels apparent in the image.
I can then release the mouse and do the
| | 02:34 |
same thing for the shadows, I'll hold the
alt or option key once again, and here we
| | 02:38 |
can see that even at the minimum value I
already have a few Few pixels showing up,
| | 02:42 |
so I'll leave that alone for the moment.
I'll switch to the green channel.
| | 02:48 |
Once again, we see there's a bit of a gap
there.
| | 02:50 |
So I'll hold the alt or option key once
more and then drag that white point value
| | 02:53 |
inward until I start to see pixels showing
up and then I'll back off over to the right.
| | 02:59 |
And right about there, I've achieved a
neutral result in terms of the green value
| | 03:03 |
at least.
And so I'll switch to the shadows and you
| | 03:06 |
can see using the clipping preview
display, there are already some pixels
| | 03:09 |
that are blocked up in terms of shadow
detail.
| | 03:13 |
So, finally I'll switch to the blue
channel and once again hold the Alt or
| | 03:15 |
Option key and drag the white point inward
until I start to see pixels appearing and
| | 03:19 |
then back off just a little bit and do the
same thing for the black point.
| | 03:24 |
And so it looks like overall we have
pretty neutral dark shadows, and now I've
| | 03:28 |
neutralized the highlights as well.
And we can see the effect by turning off
| | 03:32 |
the visibility for this adjustment layer
and then turning it back on again.
| | 03:37 |
And you'll see that there's a slight color
shift toward more neutral values and I've
| | 03:40 |
also brightened the image up.
So I've established that white point,
| | 03:44 |
maximizing the tonal range within the
image but at the same time ensuring that
| | 03:48 |
the highlights are neutral.
| | 03:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sophisticated color with Curves| 00:02 |
When we apply a color balance adjustment,
we're shifting all color values within the
| | 00:05 |
image in a particular direction.
We might shift towards a more red or a
| | 00:10 |
cyan value for example, or toward a more
yellow value versus a blue value, but
| | 00:13 |
we're affecting every single pixel.
What happens in a situation where you need
| | 00:19 |
the opposite adjustment for bright areas
versus dark areas.
| | 00:23 |
Here for example, the brighter areas of
the image seem a little bit too green.
| | 00:28 |
There are certainly plenty of green going
on in this image, lots of moss growing on
| | 00:31 |
the tree here.
But the shadows are too magenta.
| | 00:35 |
Well, green and magenta are opposite
colors.
| | 00:38 |
What that means is that if I shift the
greens in order to make them less green,
| | 00:42 |
I'll be shifting them toward magenta.
And so, if I'm applying an adjustment that
| | 00:47 |
affects the entire image in the same way,
that means the shadows will become even
| | 00:51 |
more magenta.
And that's a bit of a problem in this case.
| | 00:55 |
I could theoretically apply Target
adjustment, but that would be a bit tricky
| | 00:58 |
utilizing layer mask to focus my
adjustment on specific tonal ranges.
| | 01:04 |
Fortunately the Curves adjustment makes
that incredibly easy.
| | 01:07 |
I'll get started by adding a Curves
Adjustment layer.
| | 01:10 |
So, at the bottom of the Layers panel,
I'll click on the Add Adjustment button,
| | 01:14 |
and then choose Curves from the Pop-up
menu that appears.
| | 01:19 |
I'll then scroll down just a little bit
so, we can see the entirety of the curve here.
| | 01:22 |
And I'm going to switch to one of the
color channels for this Curves adjustment.
| | 01:28 |
By default, I'm working on the RGB
composite channel.
| | 01:31 |
Meaning effectively, I'm adjusting only
tonality for the overall image.
| | 01:35 |
In this case, I need to affect color.
And so, I'm going to work on the green channel.
| | 01:40 |
And that's because my problem at the
moment has to do with green and magenta.
| | 01:44 |
Green and magenta are opposite colors, and
so both can be affected with the green channel.
| | 01:50 |
I'll choose that green channel.
And if I shift the values upward, in other
| | 01:53 |
words, brightening the green channel, just
by clicking on the curve and dragging
| | 01:56 |
upward, you'll see that the image gets
more green.
| | 02:00 |
If I drag downward, you'll see that the
image gets more magenta.
| | 02:04 |
Well, what I want to do is affect that
change in specific areas of the image
| | 02:08 |
based on tonality.
So, let's start off with the areas that
| | 02:12 |
are a little bit too green.
That means I need to drag the curve
| | 02:15 |
downward, but I want to focus that
adjustment on the brightest areas of the curve.
| | 02:20 |
In other words over toward the right side
of the curve.
| | 02:23 |
So, if I move over toward the right and
then drag downward, you'll see that I'm
| | 02:26 |
still affecting the entire image at the
moment, but I'm focusing that adjustment
| | 02:30 |
on the areas that were brightest.
It won't take much of an adjustment.
| | 02:36 |
I think right about there might work
nicely, but let's focus now on the shadow areas.
| | 02:41 |
Those fall down towards the left end of
the curve.
| | 02:43 |
You can see that the curve is being pulled
downward in that area, which means we're
| | 02:47 |
adding magenta.
I can subtract magenta by shifting toward green.
| | 02:52 |
And so, I'll click on that that end of the
curve, and drag upward.
| | 02:55 |
And you can see that I'm focusing my shift
toward green on the darkest areas of the image.
| | 03:01 |
Once again, it won't take much of an
adjustment.
| | 03:03 |
Perhaps right about there might work
nicely, and then I can fine-tune those
| | 03:07 |
bright areas, determining how much of a
shift toward magenta I want.
| | 03:13 |
And of course, I'll probably want to go
back and forth between these to
| | 03:16 |
adjustments, between the two anchor points
for curves to try to fine tune exactly the
| | 03:20 |
range of colors that I'm affecting.
And as I'm working, it can be very helpful
| | 03:25 |
to turn off the visibility for the
adjustment, and then turn it back on again
| | 03:28 |
to help get a better sense of the accuracy
of our adjustment.
| | 03:32 |
In other words, how happy we are with that
overall adjustment.
| | 03:36 |
But I think at this point, I've gotten
things pretty close to where they should be.
| | 03:39 |
I might take those highlight areas down
just a little bit more toward magenta.
| | 03:44 |
Right about there looks to be pretty good.
Once again, I'll turn off the visibility,
| | 03:48 |
turn it back on again, and I think I have
a much more neutral result.
| | 03:52 |
And I've accomplished that by adjusting
the shadows and the highlights individually.
| | 03:57 |
I could continue switching among the
various channels.
| | 04:00 |
For example, if I had an issue with red
versus cyan, or blue versus yellow, I
| | 04:04 |
could move to those channels and
fine-tune.
| | 04:07 |
I can also go back to my RGB composite
channel and make further adjustments to
| | 04:11 |
the overall tonality.
For example, maybe I want to brighten the
| | 04:15 |
image up just a little bit.
The bottom line though, is that curves
| | 04:19 |
give us tremendous control over both tonal
adjustments and color adjustments.
| | 04:24 |
And it's especially helpful when we need
to apply different color adjustments to
| | 04:27 |
bright areas versus dark areas in the
image.
| | 04:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a gradient of color| 00:02 |
At times the color adjustment you want to
apply may actually involve adding color to
| | 00:06 |
the image.
In this example, I have a scene were the
| | 00:11 |
sky is a bit drab.
There's just not much color going on there.
| | 00:14 |
And because that sky is relatively bright
and relatively neutral, there's not a lot
| | 00:19 |
I can do in terms of traditional
adjustments to add color.
| | 00:24 |
And so, I'm going to have to add color all
together.
| | 00:26 |
In this case, what I'd like to do is add a
color gradient, so that I can add an
| | 00:30 |
orangish type of color.
Maybe a yellowish-orange to the sky.
| | 00:34 |
Not a very strong color, but a little bit
of color.
| | 00:37 |
But then have that taper off so that the
rest of the image is unaffected.
| | 00:41 |
Let's take a look at how we can accomplish
that.
| | 00:44 |
I'm going to start off by creating a new
image layer.
| | 00:46 |
So, I'll click on the blank sheet of paper
icon, the Create New Layer button at the
| | 00:49 |
bottom of the Layers panel.
That will add a new layer above my
| | 00:53 |
Background Image layer.
I'm going to rename this layer so that it
| | 00:57 |
will be clear why I've added it.
So, I'll double click on the name of the
| | 01:00 |
layer, and then I'll type color gradient
in this case as the new name and press
| | 01:04 |
Enter or Return on the keyboard to apply
that change.
| | 01:08 |
I'll then choose the Gradient tool from
the Toolbox.
| | 01:11 |
And then I'll take a look at the settings
up on the Options bar.
| | 01:13 |
I'm going to choose the second gradient
Option, which means foreground color to transparent.
| | 01:20 |
The checkerboard pattern indicates
transparency.
| | 01:23 |
And this particular gradient happens to be
a foreground color that appears black,
| | 01:27 |
because my foreground color is set to
black.
| | 01:30 |
But this preset is foreground color to
transparent.
| | 01:33 |
I'll go ahead and close that pop-up.
And I'll make sure that the Style Option,
| | 01:38 |
the set of five buttons, is set to the
first one, which is linear, meaning a
| | 01:41 |
straight line gradient.
I'll also make sure that the blend mode is
| | 01:46 |
set to normal, that the opacity is set to
100%, and that the Transparency option is
| | 01:50 |
turned on.
So, I have my gradient tool configured
| | 01:54 |
overall, but I need to specify which color
I want to use.
| | 01:58 |
Because I don't actually want a black to
transparency gradient, I want some shade
| | 02:02 |
of yellow orange to transition into that
transparency.
| | 02:05 |
So, to change the color, I'll click on the
Foreground Color Swatch down toward the
| | 02:09 |
bottom of the Toolbox.
And that will bring up the color picker.
| | 02:13 |
I can then specify the color that I would
like to use, and I think something like this.
| | 02:18 |
Maybe a yellow-orange type of color.
Nothing too crazy, but something that
| | 02:21 |
seems like it'll blend in pretty well with
the image.
| | 02:24 |
And then I'll go ahead and click the OK
button in order to establish that color as
| | 02:28 |
my foreground color.
Now, because my Color Gradient layer is
| | 02:33 |
active, and I'm using the Gradient tool,
the gradient that I draw will actually
| | 02:36 |
appear on that Color Gradient layer.
And you can see, I have a beautiful
| | 02:41 |
gradient here, a very, very strong
gradient, of course.
| | 02:45 |
Lots of color going on.
The direction that I drag determines the
| | 02:48 |
direction of the gradient.
But note that because I'm working with a
| | 02:53 |
color to transparency gradient, if I keep
adding more and more gradients I get more
| | 02:57 |
and more color.
And so, in this case, it's important that
| | 03:02 |
if I'm not happy with the result, I undo
that result.
| | 03:06 |
So, I'll go the Edit menu and choose Step
Backward, and then Edit > Step Backward
| | 03:09 |
one more time.
The distance that I drag determines the
| | 03:13 |
distance of the transition.
So, if I drag a very short distance,
| | 03:16 |
you'll see that the transition from color
to transparency is very short.
| | 03:22 |
I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+C on Windows
or Cmd+C on Macintosh to undo that change,
| | 03:25 |
and I'll draw one more gradient, this time
with a smoother transition.
| | 03:30 |
So, I want to achieve something pretty
similar to this.
| | 03:33 |
I'll press Ctrl+Z one more time to undo
that gradient.
| | 03:37 |
And I can continue experimenting in this
way until I feel that I've achieved a good result.
| | 03:42 |
But of course, you'll notice that the
effect is incredibly strong.
| | 03:45 |
And that's because the blend mode for my
Color Gradient layer is set to normal,
| | 03:49 |
which means the pixels up at the top of
this gradient are completely opaque.
| | 03:54 |
Instead, I want to change this blend mode
to color so that the gradient is only
| | 03:58 |
affecting the color of the underlying
image.
| | 04:02 |
That gives me a little bit better
blending, but the effect is still a little
| | 04:06 |
bit too strong, and so, I think I'll
reduce the opacity here as well.
| | 04:11 |
Something right about there looks to be
pretty good.
| | 04:15 |
I'll go ahead and turn off the visibility
for my Color Gradient layer and then turn
| | 04:18 |
it back on, and you can see that I've just
added some color to that sky.
| | 04:22 |
It's perhaps a little bit too strong
still, so, I might tone that down a little
| | 04:25 |
bit more.
That certainly makes me glad that I
| | 04:28 |
toggled the visibility of that Color
Gradient layer off, and then on again, so,
| | 04:32 |
I can get a better sense.
But right about there, I think is working
| | 04:35 |
pretty well.
So, with the help of that Gradient tool
| | 04:38 |
and the Color blend mode, and adjusting
the opacity as well, I'm able to add just
| | 04:42 |
a little bit of color to an image that was
lacking in that department.
| | 04:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Whitening and brightening| 00:02 |
Quite often with portraits you may find
that you want to brighten and whiten the
| | 00:05 |
person's teeth, especially if the subject
of that portrait is yourself.
| | 00:11 |
Let's take a look at how we can brighten
and whiten a specific area of an image
| | 00:14 |
using a couple of related techniques.
I'm going to start off by creating a new
| | 00:19 |
layer, we'll start with a whitening
approach.
| | 00:22 |
So I'm going to hold the Alt key on
Windows, or the Option key on Macintosh,
| | 00:25 |
while clicking on the create New Layer
button.
| | 00:29 |
And that's because I want to have the New
Layer dialogue appear so I can specify the
| | 00:32 |
particular attributes for this layer.
I'll just call this Whitening, because I'm
| | 00:38 |
going to use this layer to whiten the
teeth, and I want to choose the color
| | 00:41 |
blend mode, because I'm going to use this
layer to modify the color in the image.
| | 00:48 |
With those settings established I'll go
ahead and click the OK button.
| | 00:51 |
And then I'll choose the Brush tool from
the toolbox and I can press the letter D
| | 00:55 |
on the keyboard to make sure that I'm
working with the default colors of black
| | 00:58 |
for the foreground and white for the
background.
| | 01:04 |
In this case I'll paint with white I
actually can paint with any shade of gray
| | 01:07 |
any neutural value that doesn't have any
color cast.
| | 01:12 |
But in this case, since I'm going to also
be brightening those teeth and that will
| | 01:15 |
call for white, I'll just white for both
of them.
| | 01:19 |
So I press the letter X to switch the
foreground and background colors so that
| | 01:22 |
white is my foreground color.
I'll make sure that I'm working with a
| | 01:26 |
soft-edge brush, so I'll click the pop-up
on the option Options bar.
| | 01:29 |
And make sure that hardness value is set
to 0%.
| | 01:33 |
On the Options bar, I'm going to make sure
that the blend mode is set to normal.
| | 01:37 |
I want the color blend mode for the layer,
itself.
| | 01:40 |
But for the brush, I want the normal blend
mode.
| | 01:42 |
And I'm also going to work at a 100%
opacity.
| | 01:46 |
With those settings established, I'll go
ahead and zoom in on the teeth in the image.
| | 01:50 |
And now I'm ready to paint with white.
And because the blend mode for my
| | 01:55 |
whitening layer is set to Color, that
means that I'm actually going to be
| | 01:58 |
neutralizing the color.
So I'll end up with whiter teeth, well
| | 02:03 |
actually I'll end up with grayer teeth
because those teeth are not especially
| | 02:07 |
bright and simply removing the color takes
me to a neutral gray value.
| | 02:14 |
But I'll go ahead and paint over the
entirety of the teeth.
| | 02:18 |
I'll increase the brush here now that I'm
onto the larger teeth and work a little
| | 02:21 |
bit more quickly.
And mostly I just want to make sure that
| | 02:25 |
I'm covering all of the teeth.
Naturally, I'm not entirely happy with the
| | 02:30 |
overall result, but we're going to
fine-tune that in just a moment.
| | 02:35 |
So for now, I'm just focused on completely
removing the color from the teeth, even
| | 02:39 |
though really what I wanted to accomplish
is to eliminate some of that yellowing of
| | 02:44 |
the teeth.
So, that looks to be pretty good, sort of.
| | 02:50 |
Obviously a little bit too strong of an
effect, but I think I have successfully
| | 02:53 |
painted over the entirety of the teeth.
Now, the tone down that effect, I'll
| | 02:58 |
reduce the opacity for this whitening
layer.
| | 03:01 |
So, I'll click on the pop-up for the
opacity control.
| | 03:05 |
If I take that value all of the way down
to zero with the slider, you'll see that
| | 03:07 |
we have the yellowing of the teeth there.
But if we take it up all the way to 100%
| | 03:11 |
we end up with rather gray teeth.
I might want just a little bit of color so
| | 03:15 |
perhaps somewhere right around there.
But we can come back and fine-tune this a
| | 03:19 |
little bit later.
Next I'm going to use a very similar
| | 03:22 |
technique to brighten the teeth, I'll go
ahead once again and hold the Alt key on
| | 03:25 |
Windows or the Option key on Macintosh
while clicking on the create New Layer
| | 03:29 |
button at the bottom of the Layers panel.
And now I'm going to type in new name,
| | 03:34 |
we'll call this one Brightening and I'll
change the blend mode for this layer to
| | 03:38 |
Overlay because Overlay is a contrast
blend mode.
| | 03:42 |
It will enable me to lighten or darken
specific areas over I'll go ahead and also
| | 03:46 |
turn on the fill with overlay neutral
color check box so that the layer will be
| | 03:50 |
filled with 50% gray.
And that really just makes it easier for
| | 03:55 |
me to see where I've painted if I ever
need to evaluate that layer.
| | 03:59 |
With those options established, I'll click
the OK button and you can see that my
| | 04:02 |
Brightening layer has been created.
I'll go ahead now and, once again, paint
| | 04:06 |
with white.
So I'm performing the exact same task,
| | 04:10 |
essentially, but this time, because I've
set the blend mode to overlay, the result
| | 04:14 |
will be to brighten up those teeth, and
initially to brighten the teeth up really significantly.
| | 04:21 |
You can see that I'm really getting very
white teeth here.
| | 04:24 |
Not the most attractive look, but but,
once again, we'll mitigate the effect in
| | 04:27 |
just a moment.
So I'm painting at a 100% opacity with
| | 04:31 |
white, and that is brightening the image
in the areas that I'm painting.
| | 04:38 |
I'll go ahead and use a larger brush here
and just quickly paint across the rest of
| | 04:41 |
the teeth.
And of course, I would really want to use
| | 04:45 |
a smaller brush and maybe even zoom in a
little bit closer.
| | 04:49 |
But for the moment I'll just do a quick
and basic job here so we can see the effect.
| | 04:54 |
So there you have whitened teeth, and
brightened teeth.
| | 04:58 |
But to be sure that brightening effect is
way too strong.
| | 05:01 |
So, I'll simply go up to the Opacity
control on the Layers panel, and I will
| | 05:05 |
tone down that effect by reducing the
opacity.
| | 05:10 |
At this point I'll definitely want to zoom
out on the image so that I can get a
| | 05:13 |
better sense of the effect.
I then want to turn off both the
| | 05:16 |
brightening and whitening layers at the
same time.
| | 05:19 |
So what I'll do is hold the Alt key on
Windows, or the Option key on Macintosh,
| | 05:22 |
and click on the eye icon associated with
the background image layer.
| | 05:26 |
That will cause only that layer to be
visible.
| | 05:29 |
And if I Alt or Option click again, it
will cause all layers to be visible.
| | 05:33 |
So you can certainly see we have a
brightened whitened effect but it's a
| | 05:37 |
little bit too strong.
Well, okay, it's a lot too strong, so I'm
| | 05:41 |
going to tone that down even further
especially the brightening I think.
| | 05:45 |
Maybe, tone down around there should work
pretty well.
| | 05:48 |
And the whitening I think I'll also tone
just a little bit.
| | 05:52 |
So, somewhere around there probably work
out pretty nicely.
| | 05:55 |
We'll take take a look at the before and
after and just a subtle improvement.
| | 06:00 |
In this case certainly less is more.
But by taking advantage of the Brush tool
| | 06:04 |
and a couple of blend modes, we're able to
brighten and whiten areas of the image
| | 06:08 |
that we want to enhance just a little bit.
| | 06:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Painting a color fix| 00:02 |
Attention to detail can certainly be
important, when you're capturing an image.
| | 00:06 |
And this photo provides an example of
that.
| | 00:09 |
There must of been a leaf or some other
object sticking in front of the lens very
| | 00:12 |
very close to the camera so that it was
rendered completely out of focus.
| | 00:16 |
And it's added a bit of a color cast to
the tree trunk here.
| | 00:20 |
And I'd like to clean that up.
Of course I want to do that by only
| | 00:23 |
adjusting the color without affecting the
tonality, without losing any of that texture.
| | 00:29 |
So let's take a look at how we can
accomplish that.
| | 00:32 |
I'm going to start off by creating a new
image layer so that I can paint corrective
| | 00:35 |
pixels on to the new layer.
Thus protecting my background image layer.
| | 00:40 |
But I want that layer to have special
properties, so I'm going to hold the Alt
| | 00:43 |
key on Windows, or the Option key on
Macintosh, while clicking on the Create
| | 00:47 |
New Layer button, so that the New Layer
dialog appears.
| | 00:51 |
I'll type a new name for the layer.
We'll call this Color Fix, and then I'll
| | 00:55 |
change the blend mode to Color.
And that's the real magic of this technique.
| | 01:01 |
By using the color blend mode anything I
paint onto this Color Fix layer will only
| | 01:06 |
effect the color and not the tonality of
pixels below, in other words we'll change
| | 01:10 |
the color without losing the texture.
I'll go ahead and click the OK button.
| | 01:17 |
And that new layer will be created.
You can see that it's called Color Fix.
| | 01:20 |
And the blend mode is set to Color.
I'll then click on the Brush tool on the
| | 01:24 |
Toolbox, and then make sure that I'm
working with a soft edge brush with a
| | 01:28 |
hardness value of 0%.
The blend mode for the brush itself should
| | 01:33 |
be set to normal.
I want the brush to behave normally, it's
| | 01:35 |
the layer that will have that color blend
mode set.
| | 01:38 |
And I want to work at a 100% opacity
because I want to completely fix the
| | 01:42 |
color, not just tone it down a little bit.
Now, I'm ready to paint that color fix.
| | 01:47 |
I'll zoom in on the image just a little
bit, and you can see, we have that green
| | 01:51 |
area that should be this more neutral
gray, it might be slightly bluish.
| | 01:56 |
But I want to sample the color from inside
the image, so I'll hold the Alt key on
| | 02:00 |
Windows or the Option key on Macintosh,
while working with the Brush tool and that
| | 02:04 |
gives me, temporarily, the eye dropper
tool.
| | 02:08 |
So I can simply click in the image to
sample a color from within the image itself.
| | 02:13 |
I'm going to start off just by painting
entirely with only this color.
| | 02:18 |
I'll adjust the brush size using the left
and right square bracket keys as needed.
| | 02:22 |
The right square bracket key will increase
the brush size, and the left square
| | 02:25 |
bracket key will reduce the brush size.
And then I'll simply paint over the area
| | 02:29 |
that appears, in this case, green.
And you can see that I'm changing the
| | 02:34 |
color but preserving the texture.
Of course I'm not necessarily using the
| | 02:38 |
best color at the moment, and I might want
to vary that color a bit as I move around
| | 02:41 |
different areas of this color
contamination.
| | 02:46 |
So, for example, I might paint with a
different color up here.
| | 02:49 |
I might also sample this more brownish
color and then reduce my brush size and
| | 02:53 |
paint into this area to make it brown.
And you can see just overall adjusting my
| | 02:59 |
work as I go maybe using this color over
here for example for the sort of recessed area.
| | 03:07 |
The idea is that I can find colors from
within the image itself that blend in
| | 03:11 |
nicely in this particular area that I need
to clean up.
| | 03:16 |
So just by using a new layer set to the
color blend mode I can sample colors from
| | 03:20 |
within the image and use those colors to
paint a correction that only effects the color.
| | 03:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing color from a lens flare| 00:02 |
Many photographers prefer to avoid lens
flare but I actually kind of like the
| | 00:05 |
appearance of lens flare.
but I don't care for the color effect of
| | 00:09 |
that lens flare.
I generally prefer that the lens flare
| | 00:13 |
match its surroundings.
In this case, for example, I might want to
| | 00:16 |
have the lens flare match the color of the
rocks.
| | 00:19 |
Let's zoom in on a portion of the image
here and take a look at how we can correct
| | 00:23 |
the color element of lens flare.
I'll start off by creating a new image
| | 00:27 |
layer so that I can paint my corrections
onto a new layer.
| | 00:31 |
But I need to establish special settings
for that layer so rather than just
| | 00:34 |
clicking on the new layer button, I'll
hold the Alt key on Windows or the Option
| | 00:38 |
key on MacIntosh while clicking on that
button and that will cause the new layer
| | 00:41 |
diaglogue to appear.
I'll go ahead and type color fix as a new
| | 00:46 |
name for this layer and then change the
blend mode to color so that anything I
| | 00:50 |
paint on this layer will only affect the
color of what's below.
| | 00:55 |
I'll click the OK button to create that
layer.
| | 00:58 |
And then I'll choose the Brush tool from
the Toolbox.
| | 01:01 |
And on the Options bar click the Brush pop
up and make sure that Brush Hardness
| | 01:04 |
setting is at 0%.
The Blend Mode should be set to normal and
| | 01:09 |
the Opacity at 100%.
I'll then move out over the image and I'm
| | 01:13 |
going to hold the Alt key on Windows or
the Option key on Macintosh in order to
| | 01:16 |
access the Eyedropper tool temporarily.
While working with the brush tool, and
| | 01:21 |
then I'll click to sample a color from
within the image, and I can paint with
| | 01:25 |
that color over the lens flare.
And that will completely remove the color
| | 01:30 |
element that was caused by the lens flare
replacing it with a surrounding color
| | 01:34 |
while retaining the appearance of the lens
flare in terms of that luminance change.
| | 01:39 |
I'll go ahead and correct these other
little elements of lens flare as well.
| | 01:43 |
I can also zoom out on the image a little
bit, and then sample an additional color.
| | 01:48 |
And paint a color fix there.
Maybe pan across and sample the rock color
| | 01:52 |
over here and correct the lens flare in
that portion of the image as well.
| | 01:57 |
So you can see just by utilizing the color
blend mode and sampling specific colors
| | 02:01 |
from within the image.
I'm able to remove the color effect from
| | 02:06 |
lens flare while retaining its luminance
change in the image.
| | 02:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using an adjustment layer to paint in a correction| 00:02 |
At times, you may run into a situation
where you need to adjust color in a
| | 00:05 |
specific area of the image.
And it might not necessarily be just a
| | 00:09 |
single color that you need to adjust or a
specific tonal value that needs an
| | 00:13 |
adjustment, but what I refer to as a
specific geographic area within the photo.
| | 00:19 |
In this case for example roughly the
bottom half of the image in the roadway
| | 00:23 |
here looks to be a bit too magenta.
But the rest of the image looks fine as
| | 00:27 |
far as the overall color balance.
So I'd like to shift the color balance but
| | 00:31 |
only for this lower portion of the image.
Lets take a look at how we can apply a
| | 00:35 |
targeted adjustment.
Essentially painting the adjustment into
| | 00:39 |
the image.
I'll start off by applying the adjustment
| | 00:42 |
that I think I need.
In this case a color balance adjustment,
| | 00:45 |
so at the bottom of the layers panel, I'll
click on the Add Adjustment Layer button
| | 00:49 |
and then choose Color Balance from the
pop-up menu.
| | 00:53 |
I'll then adjust the color.
Now, keep in mind, I'm going to be
| | 00:55 |
adjusting the entire image at the moment,
but I want to try to concentrate on the
| | 00:58 |
area that's actually going to be affected
by this change.
| | 01:03 |
But in this case, I think the adjustment
is going to be relatively subtle.
| | 01:05 |
So I'm actually going to start off with an
exaggerated adjustment so that it will be
| | 01:10 |
very clear where I'm affecting the image
and where I'm not.
| | 01:14 |
The reason the entire image is being
affected by this adjustment is that the
| | 01:18 |
layer mask, the white thumbnail you see
here associated with my adjustment layer.
| | 01:23 |
Is filled with white.
Every adjustment layer you create will
| | 01:27 |
have a layer mask attached to it, and it
will be white by default.
| | 01:31 |
White, in the context of a layer mask
affiliated with an adjustment layer, will
| | 01:35 |
reveal that adjustment.
The opposite, black, will block the
| | 01:39 |
adjustment, and in fact shades of grey can
be used to partially block or reveal the adjustment.
| | 01:46 |
In this case I want to block the
adjustment from the upper portion of the image.
| | 01:50 |
So I'll choose the brush tool from the
toolbox and make sure I'm working with a
| | 01:53 |
soft edge brush, Ill click the brush
pop-up on the options bar and make sure
| | 01:56 |
that hardness is set to 0%.
I'll make sure that the brush blend mode
| | 02:02 |
is set to normal, and the opacity is at
100%, and then I'll press the letter D on
| | 02:05 |
the keyboard to establish Publish my
default colors of black and white.
| | 02:11 |
And then press X as needed to switch the
foreground and background colors so that
| | 02:15 |
black is my foreground color.
I'll then adjust brush size using the left
| | 02:19 |
and right square bracket keys on the
keyboard.
| | 02:22 |
The left square bracket key will reduce
the brush size while the right square
| | 02:25 |
bracket key will increase the brush size.
And then I'll simply click and paint
| | 02:30 |
within the image.
So I'm painting with black, which is
| | 02:33 |
blocking the adjustment, in this case for
approximately the top half of the image.
| | 02:39 |
And because I'm using a soft-edged brush,
that adjustment transitions into the rest
| | 02:43 |
of the image very smoothly.
You'll notice on the Layers panel, my
| | 02:47 |
layer mask for the Color Balance
adjustment layer now is black for the top.
| | 02:51 |
Oh, approximately 1 3rd or so of the
image, with a smooth transition into the
| | 02:54 |
bottom portion of the image.
I'll adjust my brush size, and use a
| | 02:59 |
smaller brush to paint with a little bit
more detail in these areas.
| | 03:03 |
It'd be a good idea, of course, to zoom in
and make sure that I'm getting the best
| | 03:06 |
result possible.
But that looks to be a pretty good effect.
| | 03:11 |
I'll turn off the visibility for my color
balance adjustment layer and turn it back
| | 03:13 |
on again.
And you can see that I've got a pretty
| | 03:16 |
good result in terms of the area being
affected.
| | 03:20 |
But, of course, the adjustment is not yet
optimized for the image.
| | 03:24 |
So, I can now go back to my properties
panel for my color balance adjustment and
| | 03:28 |
take the magenta value up a little bit.
And perhaps, shift the cyan-red slider a
| | 03:34 |
little bit more towards cyan, and
otherwise fine-tune that adjustment.
| | 03:39 |
I'll turn off the visibility for my
adjustment layer.
| | 03:41 |
Once again, you can see the roadway
appears a little bit reddish to magenta.
| | 03:46 |
And when I turn that adjustment back on,
you can see that we have a much more
| | 03:49 |
neutral result.
If I need to, I can go back into the image
| | 03:52 |
with the brush tool and paint with black
or white.
| | 03:56 |
In this case, I think I have an area
around the edge of the roadway that is not
| | 03:59 |
being adjusted quite right, and so I'll
use white as my foreground color and then
| | 04:03 |
paint into that area in order to reveal
the adjustment in that portion of the image.
| | 04:11 |
So, I can go back as needed and paint into
additional areas of the image with white
| | 04:14 |
to reveal the adjustment, or black to
block the adjustment.
| | 04:18 |
And of course I can always fine tune the
adjustment itself on the properties panel
| | 04:22 |
as needed.
But I think I've achieved a good result
| | 04:25 |
here, applying a color balance adjustment
that only affects a specific portion of
| | 04:29 |
the image.
| | 04:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Toning down color in skin| 00:02 |
Accurate and pleasing color can always be
important in an image, but when were
| | 00:06 |
talking about skin tones it can be all the
more important.
| | 00:10 |
In this photo, for example, the skin in
this woman is looking a little bit ruddy.
| | 00:14 |
We've got some red tones that are a bit
too saturated, and so we'd like to tone
| | 00:18 |
those down.
To do that I'll reduce saturation and that
| | 00:22 |
should take care of most of the problem.
I'll go ahead and start by creating a hue
| | 00:27 |
saturation adjustment layer.
So I'll click on the add adjustment layer
| | 00:31 |
button at the bottom of the layers panel
and I'm going to choose hue saturation
| | 00:34 |
from the pop-up menu.
And then I can reduce saturation but I
| | 00:39 |
want to reduce saturation just for those
skin tones.
| | 00:43 |
So I'm going to change the master pop-up
so that we are reflecting the red values.
| | 00:48 |
I'll then increase the value for
saturation so that we can confirm that the
| | 00:51 |
correct range is being affected.
As needed I can adjust the range of colors
| | 00:55 |
with the color gradients down below.
The lighter grey shows the color range
| | 01:00 |
that is being completely effected by the
adjustment.
| | 01:03 |
And the darker grey shows the area of
transition.
| | 01:07 |
In this case, I might bring the handles
inward just a little bit to tighten up the
| | 01:10 |
transition on either side.
But then I might expand the range just a
| | 01:14 |
little bit so that we're making to get.
All of those skin tones.
| | 01:19 |
I'll go ahead and zoom out on the image,
and then adjust that saturation back and forth.
| | 01:24 |
In this case, I would probably want to
reduce the saturation for the image.
| | 01:28 |
But as I do that, you'll notice that I'm
not only affecting skin tones.
| | 01:32 |
I'm actually affecting the red bricks
throughout the image as well.
| | 01:36 |
And that's because I defined my adjustment
based on a specific range of color values.
| | 01:42 |
Normally that works great but not when I
have the same color values repeated
| | 01:45 |
throughout the image, and I only want to
affect a specific portion of the image.
| | 01:51 |
So in this case I need to paint the
adjustment into the image.
| | 01:54 |
I can still leave the adjustment as it is.
As far as the adjustment itself is concerned.
| | 01:59 |
Because I do only want to effect that
range of reds that I've defined, but I
| | 02:02 |
want to make sure that I'm also limiting
the adjustment to a specific area within
| | 02:06 |
the image as well.
And so I'll need to modify the layer mask
| | 02:11 |
that is associated with my hue saturation
adjustment layer.
| | 02:15 |
To begin with, I'm going to fill this
adjustment layer mask with black.
| | 02:19 |
In the context of a layer mask, white
reveals and black blocks.
| | 02:23 |
So by filling this layer mask with black,
the hue saturation adjustment will not be
| | 02:27 |
affecting any of the image.
So, I'll go to the Edit menu and choose Fill.
| | 02:33 |
I'll then set the use pop up to black, and
make sure that the blend mode is set to normal.
| | 02:38 |
And the opacity is at 100%.
And then I'll click OK.
| | 02:42 |
And that layer mask is now filled with
black, so the effect of this hue
| | 02:45 |
saturation adjustment layer is not visible
anywhere in the image.
| | 02:50 |
I will then go ahead and choose the brush
tool from the tool box, I will press the
| | 02:53 |
letter D on the keyboard to make sure the
colors are set to their default values,
| | 02:56 |
which in the case a Layer mask is white
for the foreground color and black for the
| | 03:00 |
background color.
On the options bar, I will click on the
| | 03:05 |
brush pop up to make sure that the
hardness is set to 0%, that the blend mode
| | 03:08 |
is set to normal and the opacity is at
100%.
| | 03:12 |
I can then zoom in on the image once
again.
| | 03:15 |
And adjust the brush size as needed, using
the left square bracket key to reduce the
| | 03:19 |
brush size, and the right square bracket
key to increase the brush size, and then
| | 03:23 |
I'll paint with white just in the area
that I want to affect; in this case, the
| | 03:26 |
face, primarily, the skin tones within the
image.
| | 03:32 |
Now of course you can see that the
adjustment is a little bit strong, but
| | 03:35 |
that actually helps make it easier for me
to see exactly where I'm painting.
| | 03:41 |
Now that I know I'm effecting the correct
area of the image.
| | 03:44 |
I can go back to my adjustment, and fine
tune it so that we get a better result.
| | 03:49 |
In this case just bring that saturation
back up.
| | 03:52 |
I'll take it up to about zero initially,
so we can see the colors that were a
| | 03:56 |
little bit too vibrant.
And then I'll reduce the value just
| | 03:59 |
enough, so that we tone down the colors in
those skin tones.
| | 04:03 |
I think right about there will work pretty
well.
| | 04:05 |
I'll zoom out and then turn off the
visibility for my hue saturation
| | 04:08 |
adjustment layer by clicking the eye icon
to the left of that layer on the layers panel.
| | 04:14 |
So you can see, those skin tones are a
little bit too saturated, but now we've
| | 04:17 |
toned them down, maybe a little bit too
much.
| | 04:19 |
I might bring that saturation up just a
little bit, but right about there looks
| | 04:22 |
good, so now we've taken those skin tones
and toned them down.
| | 04:26 |
Both by focusing our adjustment on a
specific range of colors, but then also
| | 04:30 |
utilizing the layer mask to make sure that
we're only adjusting those colors in a
| | 04:33 |
very specific area of the image.
| | 04:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selection-based targeted color correction| 00:02 |
Especially in situations where color was
part of the motivation for capturing an
| | 00:05 |
image in the first place.
It can be very important that those colors
| | 00:09 |
are accurate.
Here we have a great red barn with some
| | 00:12 |
beautiful red tones and a tractor in the
foreground that's looking pretty nice, but
| | 00:16 |
the sky is not looking very accurate.
That color is shifted a bit too much
| | 00:22 |
toward cyan, and so I'd like to shift the
color balance essentially for that sky.
| | 00:28 |
And I want to do that in a targeted way.
In this case I think the best approach is
| | 00:32 |
going to be to create a selection of that
sky and then apply an adjustment that only
| | 00:36 |
effects that selected area.
So, let's get started by creating a selection.
| | 00:42 |
I'll click on the quick selection tool on
the toolbox.
| | 00:45 |
In this case and then simply click and
drag within the sky to sample a portion of
| | 00:49 |
that sky and create a selection.
And in this case, the quick selection tool
| | 00:54 |
does a fantastic job of creating that sky
selection.
| | 00:58 |
Next with the selection active, I'm going
to add an adjustment layer.
| | 01:02 |
And that will produce an interesting
result.
| | 01:04 |
I'll click on the Add Adjustment Layer
button at the bottom of the Layers Panel
| | 01:08 |
and then I can choose which adjustment I
think I'd like to apply.
| | 01:12 |
In this case I might want to shift the
color balance and the saturation for this
| | 01:15 |
area and so I'm going to use the hue
saturation adjustment.
| | 01:20 |
I will click on that option from the pop
up menu and we'll start off by taking a
| | 01:23 |
look at saturation just so that we can see
which area of the image we are effecting.
| | 01:27 |
And sure enough it's just the sky.
And that's because I had a selection
| | 01:31 |
active when I added my hue saturation
adjustment layer and therefore the layer
| | 01:36 |
mask associated with that hue saturation
adjustment reflects the selection.
| | 01:42 |
Specifically, the area of the image that
had been selected, the sky, is white on
| | 01:46 |
that layer mask, and the rest of the
image, the deselected portion of the
| | 01:49 |
image, is black.
And in the context of a layer mask, black
| | 01:54 |
blocks and white reveals.
So the area of the layer mask that is
| | 01:58 |
black is blocking this adjustment, and the
area that is white is revealing the adjustment.
| | 02:03 |
In other words, I'm only adjusting the
sky.
| | 02:06 |
To shift the color balance of the sky I
can simply shift the hue, and since I have
| | 02:10 |
a targeted adjustment thanks to that layer
mask, I will only be changing the hue of
| | 02:14 |
the sky.
I'll shift over toward the right a little
| | 02:18 |
bit to get more of a blue tone and I can
play with saturation but in this case, as
| | 02:22 |
much as I love the saturation in the sky I
think I need to tone it down a little bit.
| | 02:28 |
It was just a little bit too harsh.
And that looks a lot better to my eye.
| | 02:31 |
I'll turn off the visibility for my hue
saturation adjustment layer and then turn
| | 02:35 |
it back on again and you can see a
significant improvement.
| | 02:39 |
There is one other thing that I want to
make sure to do.
| | 02:42 |
And that is to feather the selection.
I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
| | 02:45 |
Option key on Macintosh and click on that
layer mask on the Layers Panel and you can
| | 02:48 |
see that there's a very harsh transition
between the sky and the rest of the image
| | 02:52 |
between the white areas and black areas of
that layer mask.
| | 02:58 |
And so I'll Alt or Option click on that
layer mask one more time, and because I
| | 03:01 |
clicked on the layer mask the properties
panel has automatically switched to the
| | 03:05 |
masks option, and you'll see that we have
a feather slider.
| | 03:10 |
I'll increase that slider value
significantly and you can see that we
| | 03:13 |
start to get a transition here.
I don't want too much transition though,
| | 03:16 |
just a very small amount so that we don't
have any obvious indications of the adjustment.
| | 03:21 |
Usually, right about one pixel will work
pretty well, that looks pretty good.
| | 03:25 |
I can also go back to my Adjustments on
the Properties panel, and fine-tune as I
| | 03:30 |
see fit.
For that hue saturation adjustment that is
| | 03:34 |
only affecting a specific portion of the
image based on a selection thanks to the
| | 03:38 |
use of that layer mask.
| | 03:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Warming up shadows| 00:02 |
You're probably aware that shadows tend to
look a little bit cool, where as areas
| | 00:05 |
that are being directly lit tend to look a
little bit more warm.
| | 00:09 |
And that's of course especially true in
late afternoon light.
| | 00:13 |
Here, I have a scene that involves
essentially two different light sources.
| | 00:17 |
Really, just one light source, the Sun,
but because we have direct light versus
| | 00:21 |
indirect light, we're ending up with two
very different color values.
| | 00:26 |
We have very warm color values for El
Capitan in the background, and relatively
| | 00:30 |
cool values in the shady area around the
Merced River here in the foreground.
| | 00:35 |
I'd like to warm up those shadows just a
little bit, though.
| | 00:38 |
Not too much, but a little.
Now when you think about adjusting the
| | 00:42 |
color in the shadow areas, you might think
of curves, and that's a good thought.
| | 00:47 |
Except in this case, the areas that are
shadows are not necessarily the darkest
| | 00:51 |
areas of the image.
That snow is relatively bright, and so
| | 00:55 |
it's not just the dark areas of the image
that I want to adjust but rather,
| | 00:58 |
essentially the lower half of the image.
So let's take a look at how we can apply a
| | 01:04 |
warming of those shadow areas, in this
case.
| | 01:07 |
I'll start by creating a new adjustment
layer, so I'll click on the Add Adjustment
| | 01:11 |
Layer button at the bottom of the Layers
panel, and for this adjustment, I think
| | 01:14 |
I'll use color balance, so that I can just
shift toward more reddish, yellow values
| | 01:18 |
to warm up those shadows.
I'll start by applying an exaggerated
| | 01:24 |
adjustment so that I can see very clearly
exactly where I'm affecting the image.
| | 01:29 |
And at the moment I'm affecting all of the
image, and that's because the layer mask
| | 01:32 |
associated with my color balance
adjustment layer is filled with white.
| | 01:38 |
A white layer mask reveals the adjustment,
while a black layer mask would block the adjustment.
| | 01:43 |
And in this case I want to sort of mix and
match that.
| | 01:46 |
I want the layer mask to be white in
essentially the lower half of the image
| | 01:49 |
for those shadow areas, but I want it to
be black in the upper half of the image so
| | 01:52 |
that the rest of the scene remains as it
is.
| | 01:56 |
I'll start off by filling this layer mask
with black so that I can paint the
| | 01:59 |
adjustment into the image, it's not
necessary to take that approach but it's
| | 02:03 |
just my preferred approach.
So I'll go to the Edit menu and choose Fill.
| | 02:09 |
I'll make sure that the Use pop-up is set
to black and that the blend mode is set to
| | 02:12 |
normal and the opacity is at 100%, and
then I'll click the OK button, and you can
| | 02:16 |
see that that fills my layer mask with
black so that this adjustment is
| | 02:19 |
completely blocked.
We're not seeing the effect anywhere in
| | 02:25 |
the image.
I want to paint the adjustment now into
| | 02:28 |
those shadow areas and so I'll choose the
brush tool from the toolbox, I'll press
| | 02:31 |
the letter d on the keyboard to make sure
the colors are set to their default values
| | 02:34 |
of black and white.
And then as needed, I can press the letter
| | 02:39 |
x on the keyboard to switch the foreground
and background colors, making sure that
| | 02:43 |
white is set as the foreground color.
Then on the Options bar I'll click the
| | 02:48 |
brush pop-up, make sure my hardness is set
to 0%.
| | 02:52 |
And I'll also confirm that the blend mode
is set to normal.
| | 02:54 |
And the opacity is at 100%.
I can then move my mouse out over the
| | 02:59 |
image and adjust the brush size as needed.
Using the left square bracket key to
| | 03:03 |
reduce the brush size, or the right square
bracket key to increase the brush size.
| | 03:07 |
In this case I can use a relatively large
brush.
| | 03:10 |
And so I'll increase the brush size a
little bit.
| | 03:13 |
And then painting with white on the layer
mask, I can bring that adjustment into
| | 03:17 |
just the areas of the photo where I want
to have it.
| | 03:21 |
In this case, just the lower half of the
image.
| | 03:24 |
Now bear in mind the adjustment I applied
was very, very strong.
| | 03:27 |
So we're seeing quite a strong effect
here.
| | 03:29 |
I can now, though, go back and mitigate
that effect a little bit.
| | 03:32 |
Just shifting that color balance a little
bit back to a more neutral value, perhaps
| | 03:36 |
right around there may be just a little
bit more red.
| | 03:40 |
So we still have some cool tones in those
shadows but if I turn off the visibility
| | 03:44 |
for that color balance adjustment layer
you will see that we have significantly
| | 03:48 |
warmed up the shadows.
So, I think we have a little bit better
| | 03:52 |
balance of those color tones.
I can always go back as needed and paint
| | 03:56 |
into that layer mask if I need to add
areas that are going to be affected or
| | 03:59 |
subtract them.
Painting with white where I want to see
| | 04:02 |
the adjustment.
Or black, where I don't want to see the adjustment.
| | 04:06 |
It can also be helpful to evaluate the
layer mask itself.
| | 04:09 |
So I'll hold the Alt key on Windows or the
Option key on Macintosh and click on the thumbnail.
| | 04:14 |
For that layer mask, so that I can see the
actual mask.
| | 04:18 |
This can be very helpful in terms of
making sure that I painted into all areas
| | 04:21 |
that I wanted to affect, and actually I
noticed I have a little bit of a grey
| | 04:24 |
streak here so I'll paint with white to
clean up that portion of the layer mask,
| | 04:28 |
but otherwise it looks to be in good
shape.
| | 04:33 |
So I'll go ahead and Alt or Option click
on that layer mask thumbnail once again to
| | 04:36 |
get back to the image itself but at
anytime I can fine tune that layer mask or
| | 04:40 |
fine tune the adjustment in order to
improve upon my targeted adjustment to
| | 04:43 |
warm up the shadows in this photo.
| | 04:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
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