a quick color correction trick using curves in photoshop
Curves:
Curves can be tricky and a little intimidating to use, but there are some great simple tricks you can do with them, too.
This is one for colour correcting.
Here is the original picture.
It has been lit to be very blue, but I want to see if I can bring the flesh tones up.
Your top pallete on the right (Navigator / Info / Histogram) should be set to the middle choice, Info
Go to the pop up for adjustment layers, pop the menu up, and choose curves.
when the curves window opens, put your curser over the picture, and hold down your mouse button. You will see a black circle appear on the diagonal line in the curves window.
You want to find the 50% value between dark and light
How?
Just run your cursor around the picture until the little circle is centered on the axis lines
(or as close as you can get) but *don't* use a spot on skin
Now look up at your INFO palette and there will be numbers entered for the X and Y axis - write them down or remember them.
Back to your curves window. At the bottom, there are three eye droppers. (black, grey and white)
click on the middle one to choose grey
now go back to the picture, and put the eyedropper in the spot you located before - it's easy, really. The X and Y numbers in the info palette will change as you move over the picture. You want them to match the numbers you had before.
when they match, click on the picture, and curves will reset that value as your 50% .
here's the original again, and the shifted version:
now you can play with levels and layers to refine the effect
Another tip is: duplicate the original layer before you do this (it's almost always a good idea to do that, anyway.) If the picture is very blue or orange, the corrected version may be equally too orange/blue. But if you have done the correction on another layer, you can try setting the correction to 50% opacity - sometimes that will let the more powerful colours cancel each other out and give you a good result.
This trick won't work every time, but I spend a lot of time colour correcting photos that were taken under stage/concert lighting, and I find it to be a huge time saver.
Curves can be tricky and a little intimidating to use, but there are some great simple tricks you can do with them, too.
This is one for colour correcting.
Here is the original picture.
It has been lit to be very blue, but I want to see if I can bring the flesh tones up.
Your top pallete on the right (Navigator / Info / Histogram) should be set to the middle choice, Info
Go to the pop up for adjustment layers, pop the menu up, and choose curves.
when the curves window opens, put your curser over the picture, and hold down your mouse button. You will see a black circle appear on the diagonal line in the curves window.
You want to find the 50% value between dark and light
How?
Just run your cursor around the picture until the little circle is centered on the axis lines
(or as close as you can get) but *don't* use a spot on skin
Now look up at your INFO palette and there will be numbers entered for the X and Y axis - write them down or remember them.
Back to your curves window. At the bottom, there are three eye droppers. (black, grey and white)
click on the middle one to choose grey
now go back to the picture, and put the eyedropper in the spot you located before - it's easy, really. The X and Y numbers in the info palette will change as you move over the picture. You want them to match the numbers you had before.
when they match, click on the picture, and curves will reset that value as your 50% .
here's the original again, and the shifted version:
now you can play with levels and layers to refine the effect
Another tip is: duplicate the original layer before you do this (it's almost always a good idea to do that, anyway.) If the picture is very blue or orange, the corrected version may be equally too orange/blue. But if you have done the correction on another layer, you can try setting the correction to 50% opacity - sometimes that will let the more powerful colours cancel each other out and give you a good result.
This trick won't work every time, but I spend a lot of time colour correcting photos that were taken under stage/concert lighting, and I find it to be a huge time saver.