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The look and feel of a picture can be completely
changed by adjusting the colors. Enhancing
saturation levels gives strong, “zingy” colors, while
desaturating them turns them into soft pastels that
give a romantic feel; changing or strengthening color
casts allows you to create warm, cool, or neutral
images. if you are shooting on film, you can achieve
color casts by using filters on your lens, while image
editing software allows you to alter color wherever you
want to in the image. Playing around with color is fun,
but remember that your goal is to enhance the image,
not to create effects for the sake of it.Saturation
in this image the model is seated
amid the reds and greens of
a poppy field.
1 undersaturated images create
pastel tones that are ideal for soft,
nostalgic images.
2 Oversaturated images are visually
startling, but here the color is
overwhelming the image and the
viewer’s attention will soon be lost.
Yellow has appeared around the
poppies and the model’s hair has shifted toward blue.
3 Here, the saturation has been only slightly enhanced from the
original and the effect is more comfortable to look at. The colors are
more natural and less aggressive.
4 The image has been completely desaturated to black and white.Selective color and hue
The selective color option in your
image editing software allows you to
individually affect specific colors. From
left to right: all the yellow has been
removed from the original red tones,
turning them magenta; neutral tones
have had all cyan removed, producing
orange; all the magenta has been
taken out, leaving the poppies yellow;
the model has been masked and the
rest of the image desaturated.cOlOr ADjusTmEnTs 139color adjustments