ATTN: PHOTO MAGS - what color correction tips do you have for Photoshop?

**Tap** · 03-12-2007, 08:51 AM

What are your typical tricks for color correcting ski shots? Both shots in shadow (overly blue) and in the light.

Hue / Saturation?

Exposure?

Brightness / Contrast?

thx brahs

**Staggerwing** · 03-12-2007, 11:15 AM

I pretty much do most of my work in Curves (Ctrl-M, on a PC). Curves shows you a raw, input vs output curve; standard is the composite (all channels, which will likely be (R)ed, (G)reen and (B)lue) if you are working in RGB space), although you can pull up a curve for each channel in the drop down.

Pick an image, and start playing. If you strictly move the endpoints, that is the same as making a Level adjustment (Crtl-L to pull up the levels menu, try the adjustment both ways to convince yourself). Strictly moving a point in the middle, either convex up, or down, is same as making a Gamma adjustment (the middle slider in the Levels box). Things get more interesting when you start using S-curves; pick a point on the bottom third (shadow region) of the curve, and pull it down a bit, then pick a point in the upper third (highlights) and move it up a bit. By doing this, you will increase the steepness of the curve in the mid-tones, which is analogous to increasing contrast in the mid-tones. If you don't move the curve end points, you can generate some mid-tone "snap" without clipping your shadow and highlights.

As for color correction, the easiest way is to correct "by the numbers." Google will turn up a couple of nice tutorials, if you look. Take your color sample tool, tell it to use a 5x5 target, and click on area that you know should be black (deep shadow), grey (snow in shade) and white (snow in light). You are going to get an R, G and B number for each region selected. Your job is to use curves, working on each individual color channel, to make those number approximately equal. Some, like the snow in shade, should be a little high on the blue channel. If your color vision is decent, that should be the final judge.

**smalls** · 03-12-2007, 02:45 PM

Just a note to the above comment. If you're working with JPEGs, do all your curves and color correction work in layers, rather than making adjustments. It will preserve some quality.

Are you shooting in RAW, JPEG or both?
Also, make sure you calibrate your monitor before you do too much color work. That will make quite a bit of difference.

**g_man80** · 03-12-2007, 02:48 PM

Here's a link to a tutorial that may help you a little. It's easy to understand and provides some nice screenshots.

Proper Curve Adjustments & Color Enhancement -
http://www.accessphoto.com/forum/ind...showtopic=1176

**shirk** · 03-12-2007, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by g_man80

Here's a link to a tutorial that may help you a little. It's easy to understand and provides some nice screenshots.

Proper Curve Adjustments & Color Enhancement -
http://www.accessphoto.com/forum/ind...showtopic=1176

Thanks for that tutorial.

**Tap** · 03-14-2007, 07:46 AM

thanks for the tips guys.

i've been playing with the layering and adjusting levels of the sky and the snow and then the skier

but the edges are too sharp. it ends up looking like a cut out picture

but what a program! the learning begins.....

**seanyob** · 03-14-2007, 10:17 AM

Photo/Video talk JONG!!

**Tap** · 03-14-2007, 10:25 AM

hey, isn't that a new forum?

an old man like myself can't be expected to keep up with you whippersnappers

**Staggerwing** · 03-14-2007, 10:42 AM

A couple of tips on avoiding the cutout look. Take a gander at that posted tutorial and notice two things: (1) he used "adjustment layers" (under the Layers menu, pick New Adjustment Layer and then decide if you want levels, curves, hue/saturation, etc.), (2) he used feathered masks to reveal the regions that he adjusted.

Adjustment layers let you go back and make further changes, without messing with the underlying image. In fact, if you don't like the changes, just delete the adjustment layer, and you are back to square one. You can also click the adjustment on and off, which can be helpful in deciding if the work was too much, or not enough.

Masks are perhaps the most powerful feature. Go ahead and create an adjustment layer, make it "curves", and make a pretty radical adjustment. When you create your adjustment layer, you will notice two little images in the layer info palette for that layer. On the left is a little mnemonic of whatever adjustment you selected (Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, etc.) and on the right is a white box. That white box is a representation of the layer mask for that specific layer. Select the adjustment layer in the layers palette. Notice there is a white circle, enclosed within a gray box, in the second column of the palette. That indicates you are actually working on the layer mask. Select the paintbrush tool, and pick "black" as your color. Start painting over your image. You should see your painting show up little white box in the layer palette, and wherever you paint, you should the underlying, unadjusted image, show through. Black on the adjustment layer blocks adjustment on the masked layer, and allows the layer below to show through. White on the adjustment layer means the adjustment layer takes precedence. More powerful, and confusing is gray, which masked proportional to the black content.

In mask edit mode, you can also make a traditional selection, feather it, and fill either the selection, or its inverse, with black, to block whatever adjustment/modification has been made to that particular layers.

It's a bit confusing to write about, but easy once you try it.

**Benny Profane** · 03-14-2007, 10:54 AM

If you could own only one book about photoshop, it's where this came from:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/ph...cmplxblnd.html

Avoid using brightness/contrast, even if you have to. They explain why. But almost all other methods are ok to use, usually in combination with each other. Sometimes a professional layer set can contain 5-10 corrections to get the final result, especially in RGB.

**Tap** · 03-14-2007, 11:08 AM

holy shit. there is a lot to learn.

**skier666** · 03-14-2007, 03:31 PM

No shit, I started taking pics this last weekend on my Canon 30D, with a print out of all the settings my pro-photog kiwi mate gave me, and let's just say I got a little frustrated. Saturday, on a bluebird day, ISO 100, the pics in RAW look super bright. So on Sunday, I lowered the exposure compensation among other things. Then, my buddy says that the bright photos are not necessarily so bad because, in RAW, you can play with that. Confused? Yep. Now that my wife is laid up, I'll probably end up spending a lot of time learning my camera and photoshop.

**The Jackamo** · 03-14-2007, 04:38 PM

if you're on a mac, check out aperture for RAW color correction - http://www.apple.com/aperture/trial. true if you use bridge and already have a workflow down, you'll probably dislike the program (as a couple ski photogs i've talked to have expressed), but if not, it's a really good program. just be sure you have a system that's able to run it (ie more than minimum requirements).

**Patches** · 03-14-2007, 08:15 PM

Skier666, download the free trial of lightroom from adobe... better for newbs than PS. The interface is way cleaner and more intuitive but the feature set is still quite powerful.

It does everything PS does for overall image editing (i.e. there are no masks or paint tools so you can't do area edits, all changes you make affect the entire image). Sure you'll need PS for doing masked edits on some of your pictures, but 99% of them can be done in lightroom and the interface is easier, plus all the edits are nondestructive. Its pretty slick. I think it is Abodes answer to aperture, which I haven't used but have heard good things about.

If I had to choose one I'd take lightroom.