Sunday, February 24, 2008

Colour Manipulation

Sometimes, the feel of a picture you want to use suites that of your graphic (or if you're forced to use a certain picture), but the colour tone doesn't match. What do you do? You manipulate the tone of your picture in a wonderful program called "Adobe Photoshop". There are several methods to achieve that and I'll just go through them in this tutorial.

Muhahaha. You'll have to sit through another one of my endless rants

Method I

What's the simplest method? Black and white. For instance, if you graphic mood allows (such as a gloomy and bleak graphic), you can simply desaturate your picture. Simple as it sounds, there are a few other tips you could waste use some time to read.

1. Move all the pictures you are planning to use onto one canvas.

2. Desaturate your picture(s). [Ctrl-Shift-U on the keyboard]

3. Look at your pictures closely. Do the level of dark / light match? If not, Ctrl-L on your keyboard and play around with the settings with the preview box ticked.



4. [Optional – Recommended as a picture that’s not the main focus of your graphic. Can be used as a shadow or reflection] If you want your pictures to have a colour tone, Ctrl-B on your keyboard. Play around with each of the settings (Shadows, Midtones and Highlights) with the "Preview" box ticked.



Here are my settings to make the following Matsumoto Jun colour manipulation with the "Preserve Luminosity" box ticked:

Shadows: -10, 0, +10
Midtones: -15, +8, +19
Highlights: 0, 0, +1

(Remember, all pictures are different. This may work for my picture but it may not work for yours)

5. [Optional] If the dark / lightness of the picture bothers you, Ctrl-L again.



Method II

This method is quite similar to the above except you don't desaturate your picture. Hence, you don’t loose most of the colour in your original picture.

1. Open your picture. (Ctrl-O)

2. Ctrl-B

Play around with each of the settings (Shadows, Midtones and Highlights) with the "Preview" box ticked.



Here are my settings to make the following Matsumoto Jun colour manipulation with the "Preserve Luminosity" box ticked:

Shadows: +9, -3, 0
Midtones: +20, -9, -16
Highlights: +6, -8, -12

Again, all pictures are modified differently. Play around with your own settings.



Method III

Firstly, I'd like to thank Soiia for teaching me this. I have learned and modified that it is mine.

1. Open your picture. (Ctrl-O)

2. Duplicate your base picture (Ctrl-J)

3. Desaturate your duplicated layer and set that layer to 'Soft Light' with an opacity of 50%.

4. At the top of your window go to Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Selective Colour.

5. Click OK to whatever box pops up.

6. Now, this is the fun complex part. See that drop down menu? What are all those colours for anyways? Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not 100% sure what they mean either but I think that the colour is a colour on your picture. So, at this point, I really can't tell you to do anything else. Just experiment with the scrolls with the 'Preview' box checked and mess with it till you get a satisfying result.



In case you are curious, here are my settings:

Reds: +12, -8, +14, -18
Yellows: +52, +22, +19, +14
Whites: -23, +15, -9, -14
Neutrals: -6, +7, -14, +12
Blacks: +6, +19, -11, +4

Method: Relative



The ones I did not list simply mean I did not alter anything on them. Again, this is for my picture only. Yours may "react" differently.

Credits:
Soiia | Google Images