All right, after this point, after I get the foreground and the background matching with each other, there are still some fixes I want to make to this image.
For example, it is low contrast. It is not constrasty enough. The colors are sort of desaturated. What do I do about all those things?
Well, turns out I want a color correct at this point multiple layers at a time. So, I need to take advantage of another color correction function inside the Photoshop which is called an adjustment layer.
To make an adjustment layer, I am going to go down to the layers pallet here and I am going to click on this half black half white icon to bring up a pop up menu of options, and then I am going to choose this guy right here levels, which is one of the best color adjustment functions in all of Photoshop. So great, that we are going to spent an entire lesson it later on down the line. But for now, I am just going to go ahead and choose this.
Now, this can be kind of a daunting dialog box at the beginning, particularly because nothing about it makes all that much sense, and then there is this big sort of mountain range in the middle, which is a histogram to make thing even scarier. Do not worry about that.
What I am going to do is punch up the brightness values inside this image and change the colors ever so slightly. This is going to be sort of a subtle color adjustment here.
I am going to click on this final value, 255, and I am going to reduce it to 245. So, I am going to make the highlights, the lightest colors in the image, slightly lighter.
Now, the color to me looks a little bit blue. If you take a look at it, it is a little bit cool. I want to warm it up a bit and I am going to do that by going to the blue channel, the stuff I want to get rid off and I am going to select this middle value and I am going to reduce this value to 0.9 from 1.00 to 0.9, and that makes the color slightly warmer. And then I am going to click Okay to accept that change.
So, this is before the addition of that layer. This is after. So, it is a subtle adjustment layer.
Well, enough subtlety already. Let us make a big color change. Let us increase the saturation of the colors.
As I said, the colors are too drab inside this image. This does not look like a welcoming, inviting sort of hunted mansion. This looks like kind of a drab boring place to go. So, let us punch up the colors. I am going to go back down to this black/white icon, I am going to click on it and I am going to choose what is now our old friend Hue Saturation, a different variation on Hue Saturation. But nonetheless, the same command as we saw before.
And this time, I am just going to raise those saturation values from zero to 40, and notice what a big difference this makes.
Now, when I click Okay, this is before that color adjustment, kind of drab colors, this is after much punchier more vivid colors.
Now, you might say hey Dick, you went a little too far there buddy boy. This is a little too saturated.
Well actually, it is kind of work out beautifully with the final affect that we are putting together here.
So, go ahead and forgive this hot orange sort of earth tones here. Pay attention to the wonderful green of the shrubbery and so on. This is going to work out very, very nicely.
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