The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

The Professional Photoshop Book 31

2. USE COLOR BALANCE
   TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
   Getting colour right in photo editing is extremely
   important, but Photoshop has plenty of built-in
   tools to help you achieve great effects every time.
   Freelance creative and student Tom Anders
   Watkins (www.tomanders.com) has high praises
   for the Color Balance tool – a simple yet effective
   solution to achieving great colour. “You can
   significantly change the mood and feel of any
   image with a couple of slight tweaks. Granted that
   the image is exposed correctly, Color Balance, if
   used correctly, will help add an extra dynamic to
   most photographs.
   “This is a photograph I shot in Finland of my
   little brother throwing rocks into a frozen lake. I
   wanted to accentuate the cold (blues) and give the
   photograph more of a dusky, evening feel (purples
   and reds), [which was] done by playing with the
   sliders. To add a little more advanced colour
   correction, I often use the Selective Color tool to
   get the right tone for more specific colours.
   “It’s easy to overdo colour sometimes – with
   great power comes great responsibility so to
   speak – and there’s a fine line [between] making a
   photograph looking too Photoshopped. A natural,
   realistic look is what will make your audience feel
   like they are there. If I’m not sure, what I’ll
   sometimes do if the image is particularly tricky, is
   make a couple of different versions, then flick
   through them. Through comparison I can often tell
   which version feels right.”

Correct perspective: “To place text or

symbols in the correct perspective on any feature, whether it is a phone or a building,

I use the Vanishing Point filter on a new layer and drew the area in the correct

perspective. I then copy and pasted the banana into the filter and inside the box,

which placed it in the correct perspective”

Sharpening:Pass filter. I duplicated the flattened image “To sharpen the image I used a High

changing the blending mode to Soft Light/Overlay. I converted to black-and-white, then

used Filter>Other>High Pass. This way you can see in real time how sharp you are making it”

© Tom Anders

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