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Lesson Info

Color Correcting

let's get into color correcting with adjustment layers A really important, practical thing that you're going to need to know. We're now in folder number seven called Adjustment Layer Retouching. And these were the things that were going to do. We're gonna take a look at a couple different way to use levels, and then we're gonna do some teeth lightening and some I lightning, all with adjustment layers, which are very, very efficient way to work in Photoshopped. So let's go ahead and pop open These three images and little dive straight into levels. So here we've got an image that is arguably a little bit overexposed in the foreground. For those curious, this is in Lisbon, Portugal. This is the Vasko de Gama, uh, Portuguese were the great see fares of the world in the great explorers of the world. So this is a monument, a monument to Vasko jicama. And interestingly enough, the same designer that designed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco also designed the the Liberty Bridge, I think...

, is what it's called, but I may be wrong on that, but if it looks like the Golden Gate in the background, that's because it's sister Bridges in Lisbon, and that's what you see back here, except for it has a train track underneath it, Which is this kind of interesting? Anyway, let's take a look at how to fix the color in this image. We're going to use an adjustment layer because that is going to do the color correction on the whole nother layer so that we can drop capacity. If the correction is too strong. It also will have a layer mask so that we can hide the correction from the parts of the photo that may not need it. So we've looked at two different ways to create adjustment layers in photo shot. One is the half black, half white circle at the bottom of your layers panel. Another way is to go up to the layer menu and choose new adjustment layer. It's exact same list in both places. What we want to do is choose levels better stop asked what you'd like to name the layer, go ahead and say OK, and as soon as you do put a shop as the adjustment layer in the layers panel and it pops, open the properties panel automatically. What the heck is going on in this Properties panel. Well, levels gets its name from what it does, and what it does is adjust the levels of brightness in your image. Hence the name levels, This little mountain range right here and it's a perfectly finally to think about it as a little mountain range is called a history Graham. But I think mountain ranges a lot more fun. This little mountain range is actually a bar graph that tells you exactly how many pixels of a given brightness level are in your image. What brightness? That Well, you may ask. Well, see this little gray scale bar underneath the history? Graham, if you were to imagine this as teeny tiny bar graphs, a bunch of them smashed up against each other. If you drew a straight line down from the tallest of your mountain peaks straight down to that gray scale bar, straight as I can draw with the mouth, that is the corresponding brightness level. So a really tall, wide mountain tells you you've got a bunch of pixels at that particular brother brightness level. What brightness level draw a straight line down into that gray scale bar. So by looking at this little area right here of our mountain range. We've got a slew of pixels in this range of brightness, right? And if we zoom back out and look at our image, wouldn't you agree? Well, if tall wide mountains means a slew of pixels at that brightness range, What is a flat prairie mean, Not a absolutely zero. So if we draw a straight line down from this area where we got our little prairie down to here, I can see that we have no true whites, Not that big of a deal, because you tend to lose a detail when anything is pure ride. Anyway. Now let's take a look over here at the left end of our history. Graham, we've got a larger prairie, and if we draw a straight line down, we see that a We don't have squat in the realm of shadows in this image, which is why it looks over exposed. So now let's look at this little chunk, which is not very tall. Why, but not very tall. So that means we've got some pixels at this brightness range taller here. So more pixels in this brightness range. So to fix this image and make it have more contrast. We really need to introduce more shadows here because we've got, ah, bunch, that's kind of medium grey and a ton. It's like, Great. That's what that history and is telling you. So there are, of course, three different ways to use levels. Actually, there's more than that for beginners. The auto button is a great word. Great way to start to start there, mainly because and see a 60 auto button got some new math behind it, and it works a heck of a lot better than it did in any of the version of the program. So if you do nothing but just click the auto button, okay, so I clicked it. So now it's toggle the visibility, often on of that adjustment layer, which is another great reason to do these kinds of adjustments in their own separate containers so you can see how far you've come. So here's the before there's the after. That's immensely better. Even if you didn't do anything else, OK, so the other thing you might do is even if you click the auto button, you might take this middle slider right here which is filled with gray. And if you want to introduce more contrast, you would drag it to the right. If you want a decrease contrast, you would drag it slightly to the lift. Hey, each one of these sliders is filled with color, which is your clue is toe, which end of the brightness range. It's gonna adjust. The slider is filled with black. It controls your shadows. This slider on the right is filled with white. It controls your highlights. The cider in the middle is filled with great controls, your mid tones. So just doing that one more time, we open the image. Click the little half black, half white. Circle the bottom of the layers panel. Choose levels. Click the auto button to pump up the contrast a little bit, grabbed the gray slider in the middle and drag it slightly to the right. I'm gonna collapse this panel. Now here's our before, and here's air after you may be done at that point, but let's take a look at another way to use it. I'll go ahead and turn the visibility of that one off and create another one. Another way to use levels is to, of course, drag the sliders in yourself. If you've got a flat prairie on the left side of your history, Graham and one on the right, What the auto button did was it simply touch those sliders of to where the information stars as all the auto, but did so you could do that manually. Okay, I'm gonna drag him back because I want to show you yet another way to go about this. What I usually do when I'm doing this on my own photos as well as client photos. As I take a spin and I look at the individual hissed a grams for all three of my color channels. And what I'm looking for are vastly different gaps on either side or prairies. Rather. So this channel right here, this history, um, actually is all three history as one for red one for green, one for blue, which your the colors that comprise your image smashed together into a composite or master history. Um, but I want to look at the individual in because if the gaps on either side are vastly different than I will, it will behoove me to adjust. The individual hissed a grams instead of the composite. Okay, so let's take a spin. I'm gonna start with Reg is because it's 1st 1 in the list. So I'm a look at that, and I'm gonna make a mental note of those gaps now in a pop down to green. Whoa! That's a big difference on the left side of that green channel. That tells me that I should pull in the shadow and highlight sliders to the foot of my mountain range in the individual channels instead of the Composite Channel. So now let's take a look at the blue. It's got a larger gap on the right hand side, So now let's just do that. I landed on blue, so let's just start with that one. So I'll grab my highlight slider, drag it into the foot of the mountains. Where exactly do you stop anybody's guess it's adjust until the embers looks good to you. You're the one that shot the image. Probably. If not, it's a good rule of thumb to drag it into where the data starts the foot of your mountain range. So we'll go ahead and drag this one over. Now it's come up to the pop up menu and choose the next channel up. Drag it over to where the information stars, and it doesn't matter which one you do for shadows or highlights. Go to the red, dry this guy over this guy over. Now let's go back to the Composite Channel, and that's where you want to adjust the mid tones lighter. Do I need more contrast? Drag it to the right. Do I need less contrast? Drug. It's slightly to the left. So now it's Compare those two methods. This is our result from adjusting. The history ends individually per channel. There's our original. This is the result from adjusting the Composite Channel or clicking the auto button. In my opinion, this one is better, and certainly on this screen looks more accurate. Toe what I saw when I took the shot. So that's two ways to use levels. Let's look at that again on another image. Now what's going on in this image? Let's take a moment to look at our layers panel. Here we have two levels adjustment layers, and there's some black paint in the mask. That means that this levels adjustment is being hidden from that spot in the image, which is about right over here on those grapes. This levels has a name copy. So what happened was the first levels adjustment wasn't quite enough. It didn't get it all the way to where I wanted the image to be. What do you do? Duplicate the darn thing. So let's click on it. Let's click on the duplicate, and I can see that Wow, it's even got a capacity of 100%. But that duplicate levels adjustment is only being revealed. The top left and bottom parts of the photo is being hidden on this whole area. So if we zoom out toggle that went off and on, see how that one is just darkening this area a little bit. Okay, and then here's the first levels adjustment that we did. So there's the before there's after, So this is the original. Okay, so let's go ahead and have a go. We'll delete these guys and we'll start from scratch so it's create our levels adjustment. Click the half black, half white, circle the bottom of your layers panel. Choose levels. And what are we going to do? Take a spin through our history? Um, uses little poppet menu right here. Take a picket. The Red Channel were visually making a note of how why these gaps are You won't always have gaps. But if you do, that's super easy to fix. Okay, this one is quite a bit of a difference in the Blue Channel down here. So let's go ahead and tuck that in. Take our shadows in trot, back up to the Green Channel, the Red Channel. Now, this kind of situation over here is a little dicey because you got a little bit and then we've got an overexposed or clipped pure white going on here. When I encounter that, I always drag it over and see if it's gonna look OK. You can always go back in and change. That's the beauty of dinner. As an investment layer, you could print this sucker Say, this is a PSD file. Close it, and if you decide you wanna tweak it, double click the layer thumbnail of the adjustment layer, not the mask. The layer thumbnail and up pops your adjustments and they're all still right there, so they're always accessible. So now let's go back to the RGB Channel and I will pump up the contrast a little bit. The only problem in doing that is my shadows have plugged up these grapes over here, so I'm gonna click to activate the layer mask my brush tools already active. Take a picket your foreground. Color chip. Press D If you need to set it to black and white press X till black cops on top. Make sure you've got a soft edged brush from the brush preset picker mouse over to your image. Change your brush size of necessary with your bracket keys and hide that adjustment from the part of the image that doesn't need it. So now look at our before and our after okay, by hiding that adjustment, my shadows aren't plugged up. Now what if he only needed to hide a little bit of the adjustment? He could do two things. You could change your foreground color chip to gray because if black conceals and white reveals what is Grady a little above. So either change your foreground color chip to gray or even easier. DoubleClick, the layer mask. And in the resulting properties panel, I wish this dadgum slider said opacity because that's when it iss density you can drop the opacity of the mask. So now if we look at our masks, see how it's great. So we're revealing a little hiding a little go ahead and leave it set 100%. Now I've still not happy with the picture. This is still much to blown out or overexposing that bottom left quadrant, so my levels adjustment layer is active. Let's duplicate it by pressing commander Control J to jump it up onto another layer. Remember, if you don't have a selection, it will duplicate the whole layer. Or you could just as easily go upto layer. And she's duplicate layer Now, my crepes airway too dark. So click to activate the mask. Make sure you got the brush tool active foreground color chips that to black. I'm gonna go way up and brush size, Zoom out a little bit so you guys can see the whole picture. And I'm just gonna hide that Second levels adjustment from the part of the image that really doesn't need it. Taste so again. Here's our before. Here's our after and the green has gotten a little bit too bright, but you guys get the idea of how you can hide and, in effect, thes thes layer masks. Last but not least, one more way to use layers or levels rather. And then we'll take a question and then go to break. This is Hey, Adrian's Fountain and at Hadrian's Villa in T Vally, Italy. And this is the source file for the fake HDR image that we've got hanging over on the wall, which is a lot of fun. So what have we got here in this image? Look at all these adjustment layers. Holy moly. So we've got the original image, which is incredibly dark. We've got a levels adjustment layer and we've got brightness and contrast. Then we've got three duplicates of brightness and contrast that are all being hidden in the same area. Taste. Let's take a look at that. Let's go ahead and delete these guys. So we're back to square one crappy picture e. I was proud of the soft water, though. Okay, so let's start with the levels adjustment. So half black, half white circle levels trot through our history brands in each channel. This history of free channel, they're not very different, so it's not gonna save you. It's gonna waste time to adjust them individually, so I would go back to the composite and then I would destroy the slider in or click the auto button and then fine tune the contrast a little bit. So I'm like in the way it looks. Here's our before Here's our after quite a bit of a fix, but I want it to be brighter. Well, wouldn't, you know, is like, What have it? Another adjustment layer option is brightness and contrast. So often times I'll use levels and brightness and contrast, so nothing is easier to use insiders. So let's go ahead in drag the brightness to the right and increased contrast a little bit. Then if I want to hide that change from certain parts of the image that I could click within the layer mask and paint with black to hide that, let's say my water has gotten to light now. So with the mask active and with a brush tool active in the tools, Cannell and black is my foreground color chip and a soft brush active in the brush presets panel. I can come over here and I can hide that brightness and contrast from the parts of my image that don't need it. Okay, so there's the before, and there's the after. Now, if I want those other areas to be brighter, still duplicate that layer and so on. You don't want it. Take it to the point of getting overexposed like we are at the bottom, which you guys get the point so infinite flexibility with adjusting the color and lighting in your image through adjustment layers like that.