This tutorial uses layers as a means of
boosting colour and contrast without affecting the shadow areas of an image.
Example:
The image below is quite flat in colour and
contrast, I’m going to boost the colour and give the image more life.
After opening the image in photoshop, I go
straight to the channels option beside ‘layers’ on the right side panel.
*The image should be in RGB mode for this,
if not, I would select ‘Image’ in the top toolbar and then select ‘Mode’ and
‘RGB color.’
In the channels bar, there are 4 options:
green, blue, red and RGB which is composed of all three colours. While holding
down the ‘Command’ key and selecting ‘RGB’, a selection is showed up on the
image. What has been selected are the pixels that contain 50% or more of white,
though pixels that only have partial white (between 50-100%) are only partially
selected.
Using any of the selection tools from the
tool bar (or ‘M’ for marquee tool) and side click on the selected area of the
image, I will create a ‘new layer via copy’ from the options. I then go back to
‘layers’ by selecting the layers panel beside the channels.
A new layer has shown up in the layers
panel with a vague image, this is because the layer only contains partially
selected pixels based on how much white they contain. From this I then select ‘Blend
mode’ that is located above the layers panel beside Opacity. The Blend Mode
will have the layer set to ‘Normal,’ I want the change the layer effect to
either ‘Overlay’ which gives a very strong contrast effect or ‘Soft light’
which is slightly less intense.
I chose ‘Overlay’ to bring out a stronger
effect than the ‘soft light’. With that blend mode, contrast has been added to
the lighter parts of the image, giving it a boost of colour.
-
My image doesn’t contain many
pixels that could become blown out, but in some cases where pixels in an image
that are mostly white can become blown out without detail, such as sky. To
bring that detail back into the image, you can create a layer mask by dragging
the layer in the layers panel down to the icon that has a circle in the middle
of a triangle.
A white image appears
beside the layer, this is a non-destructive way to hide and reveal certain
parts of the image. To hide the blown out part of an image in this case, you
select the white layer mask so that it highlighted and then you select the tool
brush (or press ‘B’). Make sure the colour is set to black as this will result
in the brush hiding sections, drag the brush over the blown-out sections of the
image and the section will show the original part of that image, based on the
background.
When you’re happy with the
effect, flatten the layers into one image by selecting ‘Flatten Image’ in the
Layers option in the top toolbar (or ‘command’ E) and the layers will combine
to form one image.
My end result:
Source:
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