07
LIFT LIGHTING WITH BRIGHTNESS
AND CONTRAST
The image still has a bit too much darkness and
contrast for a sunrise, so set the histogram back to
Luminosity and make a new adjustment layer for
Brightness/Contrast. Increase the Brightness to +25
and reduce the Contrast to -10. Now the Luminosity
histogram shows less dramatic darks and a more
even distribution between midtones and highlights,
which evens out the previously high-contrast
lighting and allows the colours to glow.10
INCREASE THE HIGHLIGHTS
Now choose Reds from the Tones menu
and push the Red/Cyan slider up to +5 red. The
reds, oranges and magentas in the image now
look clearer and more saturated, while the Red
channel of the histogram shows a U-shape with
spikes in the shadows (which complement the
overall cool tone of the image) and highlights
(which warm and enhance the magenta tones of
the sunrays and again, complement the overall
blue-green tones of the image).08
BALANCE THE SHADOW COLOURS
Put the histogram back into RGB mode
and use the fly-out menu on the histogram panel
to switch to the All Channels view. Now make a
new adjustment layer for Color Balance and
choose Shadows from the tones menu in the
Color Balance panel. The darkest area of our
image is the green foliage in the foreground, and
this is affecting how much of the colour we can
actually see. Use the centre slider to boost the
greens to +5. The Green channel’s histogram now
makes a U-shape, meaning that it’s now showing
contrast between the green tones and making the
foliage look much more realistic.05
LIFT LIGHTING WITH AN RGB CURVE
Switch to RGB on the Curves panel’s channel menu and switch out the
Color histogram for Luminosity so you’re looking at the overall tonal intensity of
the image. Make a gentle S shape with the topmost part of the Curve placed above
the highest points on the individual RGB channels. The lower point should sit
between the darks and darkest midtones on the histogram, on or just above the
closest convergence of the Curves for each individual channel.11
ADJUST HUE/SATURATION
Switch the histogram back to Colors
but leave it in the All Channels view, then make
a new adjustment layer for Hue/Saturation.
Shift the Hue to +10 to further enhance the cool
tone of the image, boost the Saturation by +5
and increase the Lightness to +5. This brings
back definition, and as you can see from the
main Color histogram, balances the colours of
the image in relation to how they appear in the
individual channel histograms below.06
BOOST COLOUR INTENSITY
WITH VIBRANCE
Make a new adjustment layer, this time for
Vibrance, and return to the Color histogram. On the
Vibrance panel, increase the Vibrance to +25 and the
Saturation to +5. You’ll see that colours are more
evenly distributed over the image, with more cool
magenta appearing in the shadows and clearer
yellow in the highlights, while blue still dominates.
The image itself has a subtle, soft colour boost
without being oversaturated.09
BRING OUT THE MIDTONES
Choose Midtones from the Tones menu
in the Color Balance panel and push the Greens
up to +25 and the Blues up to +50. The image
becomes bluer and cooler in tone, while on the
Blue channel of the histogram you’ll see that the
blues have been boosted across the tonal range
of the image, apart from in the deepest shadows,
where blues and greens are entirely absent. This
lets them contrast with the complementary
orange-red shadows and highlights, which we’ll
adjust in the next step.04
TRANSFORM THE SCENE WITH A BLUE CURVE
Drop down to Blue in the Curves panel’s channel menu. Make a soft S
shape over the Curves histogram, pulling down between the darks and
midtones and up over the brightest highlight. Notice on the Color histogram
how blues dominate the midtones, giving the image an overall blue colour
cast. Now the image has really begun its transformation from dark, warm,
high-contrast sunset to light, cool, lower contrast sunrise.Pro tricks for mastering colour
The Professional Photoshop Book 27
016-027 Colour Feature.indd 27 06/10/2015 16:08