Look at the before and after. The magic of Photoshop.
Want to know how can I do that? Back to my blog tomorrow.
Before I start. i would like to thank Chris Orwig, a professional freelance photographer. It is he guide me how to make this picture better.
Alright, let’s get started. The first thing I want you guys do is to stare at the original photograph (I call it ‘before’, which is sitting on the top in the above picture). What’s wrong with it?
“Too bright to show the detail.” “Lack of contrast.” “Pale.”
Yep! There you go. So in this tutorial, I will demo adjusting color and tone in sunset portrait. How can we make the color really come to live. Especially the photo was taken with a shining backlight.
0. Open the file, turn on your music, and maybe grab a cup of tea. Just make yourself comfortable!
1. Go to Adjustments and click on Color Balance. That will create a color balance adjustment layer. (1)
2. I want the adjustment layer to be in blend mode — Soft Light, as box “3” showed. It is better to memorize the shortcut: Shift+Alt+f on PC and Shift+opt+f on Mac. Shortcuts can boost your productivity! (3)
3. Bring in a bit red to add contrast and warm tone. It will make the audience happy. You can tweak about by yourself. You don’t have to follow me exactly. In my case, I put +16. (2)
After Color Balance:
4. Next, go back to adjustments panel and choose Hue/Saturation. (4)
5. Make sure you have checker Colorize. That will add more color and details. (5)
6. Soft Light again. Do you still remember the shortcut? Soft light darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image. (7)
7. Drag the Hue and Saturation around. Further dig a better color and tone. (6)
OK, so far so good? After Hue/Saturation:
8. Back to the Adjustments Panel and add Curves layer. (8)
In this final section, I want the lighten sky and sea back to normal. At the mean time, keep the initial works for the people in there. I’m going to use mask to do that.
9. Drag the curve and make the entire picture dark. (9)
10. Click the tab beside Adjustments and get the Masks panel. (10)
11. Invert, which will mask away all the darkling effect. (11)
12. Grab your brush (shortcut b). Make the size not too big not too small (shortcut: “[“: smaller; “]”bigger). No hardness. Ready? Roughly paint on the sky, sea, and beach. So you can bring back a little bit detail. (12)
Done!
Take away points:
- *READ* the picture before you start editing
- Color balance and Hue/Saturation give us contrast and detail
- Soft Light darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color.
- Red make people happy in some content
- Mask away the rest and keep the thing you want
- Shortcut can get the work done faster
