Unmesh Dinda 0:00 Today I'm going to share with you my favorite
method to fix color cast in Photoshop.
Also, we'll learn how to get the right exposure for the skin.
So, without any further ado, let's get started.
Back in the magical world of Photoshop, and if you wanna go ahead and download this photo
and follow along, check the links in the description.
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Back to the lesson, once you have your image open, all you have to do is to click on the
Adjustment layer icon and then choose Hue/Saturation.
Now, if you zoom in closely, have a look at the face.
There's a little bit of green color cast in there, right?
So we need to target that and change that to a little bit of magenta.
And how do we do that?
Very simple.
Click on this Hand right there and then click on the green area, then increase the Hue and
the Saturation all the way to the right.
Have a look, automatically that area is being selected.
Now, it is showing yellow, but it is a little bit towards the greener side.
Now we need to make the selection a little precise.
How do we do that?
Well, have a look at the range right there.
So this is the range of colors which are selected.
So, we need to make the range precise.
So let's make the Hue/Saturation Properties a little larger, just like so, and make it
a little narrower and bring it at the bottom or at the top.
This gives us a bigger range allowing us to be more precise.
Let's scroll down a bit.
Now, make the range, first of all, very narrow, just like this, and from the middle, hold
from the middle and move the range and stop at the point where that area is selected.
So, if you turn this off, have a look at this, this area is a little green, this area has
green color cast as well.
So now, let's turn this back on and now let's make the range narrower and move it to that
exact point.
So, according to me, this is the right place.
Now, from here, you can make the range a little wider.
Now, have a look at the edge.
At the edge, you will have two handles on each edge.
The difference between the two handles on the edge will determine how smooth the transitions
are.
So, if the distance between both the sliders at the edge is very close, the transition
is very harsh.
But if you make it apart, see, the transition is getting smoother and smoother.
Similarly, that side the transition is very harsh.
So, if you increase the distance, the transition is going to be soft just like this.
Now, once you have it done, bring everything back to neutral.
So, bring it to zero and bring this one to zero as well.
All we have to do is to add some magenta to the green and that's it.
And to do that, just shift the Hue to the left.
Have a look at it.
Have a look at the skin.
Instantly it is getting fixed.
Now, you can play with the range a little bit, maybe take it a little more to the left,
just like so.
And it works.
It looks pretty nice.
Have a look at the before and after.
So, this is the after and this is the before.
See the difference.
Now, I think the Saturation is kind of too much.
So decrease the Saturation and there we go.
It makes sense.
Here's the before, here is the after.
Now, it is not only affecting the skin, but also other areas of the image since most of
them are green.
Here's the before, here's the after.
We just want to affect the skin.
So what do we do?
We click on the Mask, it already comes with a Mask, press Ctrl or Command + I to invert
the Mask.
Now, take the brush, make sure the foreground color is white, make sure the brush is a Soft
Round brush and then, with the Opacity and Flow, both, at 100, just paint white on the
face where you wanted to fix it.
And it is fixed.
Before - after, before - after.
I still think that the Saturation is kind of too much.
So double click on the symbol and you can always..
Now, but what happened?
What just happened?
Everything is back to neutral.
Why is that?
What happened to everything?
We just made so many changes.
Keep in mind, we did not make changes to the master, we made changes to the yellows.
So, let's go ahead and choose the yellows.
Have a look at it.
We had made changes here.
So here, you can always decrease the Saturation or play with this one as well.
I think I like this.
Have a look at this.
Here's the before, here's the after.
It's looking much better.
Now, whenever you make an adjustment in Photoshop, always keep in mind, Opacity is going to be
your best friend.
So, if you think it's too much, you can always decrease the Opacity.
In my opinion, I'm going to leave it at about 70%.
That looks fine.
Now, everything we do after this step is completely optional.
It's not about removing color cast, but it's about improving the exposure and maybe the
sharpness a little bit.
So here's what you do.
There are ways to improve the exposure like adding Curves and so on and so forth.
However, there's this special algorithm with Camera Raw that is really wonderful.
Let me show that to you.
So all you have to do is to create a merged layer at the top or a Stamp Visible layer.
And to do that, press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E / Command + Option + Shift + E. Now, you
can name this Exposure.
Now, before you apply any filter, remember always, to convert the layer into a Smart
Object, so that whatever filter you apply, you can change that later.
So, with the Exposure layer selected, go to Filter and then Convert for Smart Filters,
hit OK.
Now it is a Smart Object.
Now we can go to Filter and then Camera Raw Filter.
Now, inside of the Camera Raw Filter, let's zoom in pretty quick.
You can of course increase the Exposure, but however, if we increase the Shadows because,
have a look at the face, it's too dark, right?
There's too much shadow in it.
Increase the shadow.
The algorithm here is pretty advanced and I love the way it brightens the shadows and
also you can try brightening the highlights as well.
Since the highlights are not so much great in here.
And have a look at it.
Have a look at just the skin, not the other areas.
It's looking wonderful.
Let's zoom out a little bit.
So, here's the before, here's the after.
Maybe you want to increase the Exposure as well.
So, let's increase the Exposure just a little bit, maybe 0.75.
Right?
Now, it's looking too much.
Let's decrease the blacks.
So, let's keep it at about 46 or 45.
45 is wonderful.
You can also try playing with the whites, but in my opinion, the medium one looks fantastic.
Now, once you're okay with this, just hit OK.
As simple as that.
Now, this is applied as a filter.
You can always change the values if you think it's too much.
Now, we need to just apply it to the face.
What do we do?
We mask it out.
So, the Exposure layer selected, hold the Alt or Option and click on the Mask button.
This creates a Negative Mask as opposed to if you directly click on the Mask button,
it will create a White Mask.
Now, take the brush, make sure the foreground color is white, zoom in with the Soft Brush
and just paint on the face, that's it.
Now at this point, I think the blacks are pretty bright.
So, we need to brighten it a little bit, in my opinion.
This is looking wonderful.
So, double click on the Camera Raw filter, I'll take the blacks down a little bit.
So, take it even down like that and maybe just bump up the Contrast, a touch, just a
touch.
Have a look.
Hit OK.
It's much better, right?
Now you can, of course, always decrease Opacity if you think it's too much.
So, let's increase it.
I'm going to stop right there at about, maybe 75-ish.
Now, it's very important to go ahead and take a break, maybe drink coffee, cola, whatever
you like, water or probably milk if you're like me, and when you get back to the image,
you'll be able to notice if you had done something excessively.
At this moment, it's looking fine, but I still think the darks are pretty bright.
So I'm going to go back the Camera Raw filter, and that's the advantage of a Smart Object.
You can always go back to the filters, just double click on in here, just decrease the
blacks even more.
So I'm going to go, probably, a little more to the left, hit OK.
Looks better.
Now, we need to add some overall contrast and how do we do that?
Simple.
Add a Curves Adjustment layer.
Click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Curves.
You already know it's my favorite.
Let's make the darks a little more darker, because, I think the brights are already very
bright.
So take the slider on the left hand side and take it a little bit to the right.
Now, once we do this, you can of course change the Blend Mode from Normal to Luminosity,
because it's getting too saturated.
So this is Normal.
If I change it back to Normal, have a look at this, it's a little more saturated.
But if I change it to Luminosity, it's not affecting the color.
But, I still think that Normal overall, gives a nice effect.
So, I applied in Normal and then decrease the Saturation separately.
So, click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Hue/Saturation.
And now let's decrease the Saturation to somewhere about -25 or maybe let's go for -20.
That's wonderful.
Here's the before, too much saturation.
Here's the after.
I love the color in this one.
Let's go for maybe -15.
Now, to add some more punch to the face, have a look at this, there's not much punch and
the brightness is not enough.
So, how about we go back to the Camera Raw filter.
Double click on the Camera Raw filter.
You can try increasing the Exposure a little bit more, or you can try increasing the whites
as well, see what happens.
Maybe 25-ish, hit OK.
Have a good punch.
Is that enough?
So, here's the before, here's the after.
I totally love it.
Now, to give it a finishing touch, let's add some sharpness.
So have a look at it.
Let's zoom in a little bit.
A while back, I did a video on sharpening with control and in that video I gave you
an action that you can use to easily sharpen your photos.
So, what that action does is that it adds a High Pass layer at the top and applies contrast
to it, allowing you the ability to control the sharpening.
So, download that action, links are in the description, as well, go to the Actions.
Go to Window and then, here, choose Actions.
Now, inside of that, choose Sharpness with Control.
Now, before applying the action, select the top-most layer.
Now, play it.
It will do everything automatically.
Now how much radius you need?
Radius determines the thickness of the edge.
So if we apply too much, it's going to create some halos.
If we go too much, have a look at the halos it's creating, we don't want the halos.
So, slowly and gradually increase it and stop at the point where you begin to see the halos.
So, I'm going to stop at, probably, 3.7 or maybe go for 3.4.
That's wonderful.
We can always change these values.
Hit OK.
Now, here's an interesting part, check Use Legacy and increase the Contrast to increase
the amount of sharpening.
Isn't that wonderful?
So, let's go for about 27 or 28.
That's fine.
Hit OK.
And it's done.
Now, we don't want to apply sharpening all throughout the image.
We want to use sharpening as a way to drag the attention of the viewer.
So, we want to draw the attention of the viewer towards the face.
So, hold the Alt or Option and click on the Mask button.
This adds a Black Mask.
Now take the brush, white as the foreground color, you can always decrease the Flow to
about 20%, and slowly and gradually add some sharpening to the eyes.
Start painting with white on the eyes.
This is great, maybe a little on the nose, little on the lips, overall on the face a
little bit, and have a look at this, isn't that wonderful?
So, we came from, let's zoom in a little bit, so we came from this to this.
That was so easy, and if you think it's too bright, you can always go back to Camera Raw.
Always keep in mind that you need to take a little break.
So, that's how to remove color cast and correct the exposure in Photoshop.
Just a quick little recap.
All you have to do is to add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer, target that color cast area
with the help of the Hand tool and then, maybe, refine the range and then with the help of
the Hue and the Saturation, or sometimes the Lightness, correct that area.
After you correct that, if you want to correct the exposure as well, all you need to do is
you need to add a Stamp Visible layer at the top by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E / Command
+ Option + Shift + E on a Mac, and then convert it to a Smart Object to be able to change
the values of the filter later.
And to be able to do that, go to Filter - Convert for Smart Filters, and then apply Camera Raw
on it.
Now, inside of Camera Raw, you can play with the Exposure, Highlights, Whites, Blacks and
all of that stuff to correct the exposure.
Once you're happy with this, just hit OK and mask in the area where you want to correct
the exposure.
After that you can apply some Contrast, maybe correct the Saturation and Sharpness.
That's all optional.
If you want to do it, do it, if you don't, it's okay.
But sharpness is very important to draw the attention of the viewer towards the subject.
So that's pretty much it for this video.
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Till then, stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai