Okay. So now, I am going to switch to the Sponge tool. Let us play with the saturation values a little bit here. Now, in the case of this particular image, I simply want to boost the saturation values. I do not want to desaturate the image which is the default setting.
I want to increase the saturation values to get really, really, dramatic effects out of this image. So, I am going to press the “O” a couple of times to switch to my sponge tool and when you are working blind like this, it is easy to get confused about what the heck tool do I have selected at this point. Just go ahead and try it out.
I will go over here to really saturate a part of the image and I will drag inside of it and sure enough, it is getting less saturated. Thanks to the sponge tool. It must be the sponge tool because it is desaturating the image. However, that is, as I say, not what I want to do.
Now, remember how you can press “Shift+Option+S” or M or H for shadow, midtone, and highlights. Well, same thing works here. You can press “Shift+Option” or “Shift+Alt+S” for saturate; and “Shift+Option or Shift+Alt+D” for desaturate. So, I am just going to go ahead press “Shift+Option+S” or “Shift+Alt+S” in the PC.
Now, I am going to move up here a little bit and I am going to start painting to increase saturation values inside this image. And I am doing small brushstrokes and if you feel like you are saturating too much, you are going to always press the number key, one of the lower number keys of course, to reduce the flow of this particular tool.
The default is 50%, so if you press the “4” or lower, you are going to end up reducing the flow of the brush. And I say flow because that is what it is called. I am going to press the tab key, so we can see that. It is not called exposure, it is called flow. Just so, you know. Why is it called flow? I do not know. Short for fluoresce.
Now, I think this is working up pretty nicely. I am going to zoom out just a little more and I might take up these trees a little bit. It is easy to go too far with this tool. You end up oversaturating. You can exaggerate color differences because when you are working inside of a low saturation image, they bring pixels that may actually be different hues. So, you may have one pixel that is kind of greenish and then the pixel right next to it.
They may be kind of orangish and when you bring out those colors, you really point out those differences inside the image. So, that our last brushstroke I am not so crazy about. I am going to increase the size of my brush and take the flow down to 20% by pressing the “2” key.
Now, I am going to keep painting, painting, painting and this is just how this tools work. You just play with them, see if you like the effect. If you do not, go ahead and press “Command+Z” to Undo, “Ctrl+Z” on the PC and try again. What am I talking about? Did I say do not overdo it? I am going to overdo it! This guy needs to be way more saturated than this and another weird thing about this tool is the results may surprise you.
For example, I as thinking while I make this sky even bluer by dragging over it and as I drag over it, it turns even oranger, does it not? That is interesting, I think. Anyway, this guys I just going to be ripping with color. That is the way I feel about it and it is on the neighboring colors that are in sync with each other. Well, that is their problem. Okay, there we go.
Now, that is saturation and if you do go too far, and at several steps ago. And you do not want to back step all that way and lose all your other changes, you can just desaturate the area. You can just turn the sponge the other direction there and I would think, you might think this as well. After all the stuff I told you about holding the “Option” key and brushing, you might just reckon that option-dragging or alt-dragging over an area, just like over here with desaturated. We will do the opposite effect but it does not. It just goes ahead and continues to supersaturate the image.
So, if you want to switch to desaturation, you have to choose the option from the options bar
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