In this tutorial, I will show you a nondestructive process for color-editing and retouching photographs. These techniques will make your images "finished" and professional. My main weapon is the Selective Color adjustment layer. Let's get started.
Step 1
Below is our starting image of a couple on a beach. We also need to download a photo of a beach that we'll use to improve the water and sky in the base image. We'll see this second image later in this tutorial and in the PSD download available for Plus members. Here are the links to the images we'll be using for this tutorial: 1 | 2.
Step 2
First, the base photograph looks washed out. It just isn't that interesting. Who wants to visit this boring beach? We'll be fixing that. Regardless of what I'm working on, I always separate the foreground subject matter from the background. Most times, I use the Extract Filter located in the Filters Menu. Extract is easy to use. More often than not, it does a good job of isolating your subject. Make a copy of the base layer. Place it on top of the original. Hide it. Then open up the Extract Filter.
Step 3
Using the Extract Filter, trace the subject. Then use the Fill Bucket to fill in the area you want to keep. When using the extract filter on complex details like hair, remember to outline the whole problem area so there is definite ink overlap where the detail starts and ends. Otherwise, Photoshop has trouble calculating what to remove. Notice on the hair area, there is good overlay on the sky portion as well as the man's head.
First, I extracted the people. Later on, I moved the umbrella portion to its own layer (easier for me to keep track of, but that's optional).
Step 4
After a successful extraction, there's still some touch-up that needs to be done. Using the History Palette, set the state you want the History Brush to go back to. We want to paint back the duplicated layer before we extracted it.
Step 5
Zoom in tight and you will see some artifacts that weren't extracted correctly. Sometimes there's too much background showing. Or there's foreground that was extracted by mistake. Using the History Brush(Y) and the Eraser Tools, paint back in the foreground and Erase(E) the extra background.
Remember to change the softness of your brushes to match the outline of your subject. Use a harder brush when the edges are sharper. Use a softer brush when you are in an unfocused area of the subject. That's how you keep it realistic.
Turn the visibility of the original photo back on after touching up the whole outline of the subject. You now have a perfectly separated foreground object on top of your background.
Step 6
OK, now that our foreground is on top of everything else, let's do something about that sky and ocean. Rather than using separate images for the sky and ocean, I found an image that will be used to replace both. I happened to find a clouded sky image that also had a good saturated ocean as well.
Step 7
Paste the new sky image on a new layer beneath the extracted foreground. Line up the original ocean line with the new ocean line. Create a layer mask on the new sky image layer. Use the Gradient Tool (using a black to white gradient fill) to affect the layer mask. Create a gradual fade between the base image and the new sky image. Your result should look like the second image below.
Step 8
All right, the new sky and ocean look pretty good. But now the sand looks too washed out. Let's pump it up. Most of the time, I use Selective Color instead of Hue/Saturation. You get better fine tuning and less artifacts that way.
Enter the quickmask area (the button for it is located at the bottom of the tools palette). Now everything you paint or fill is treated as a selection. The painted part is the unselected area. Use the Gradient Tool to fill the quick mask from the edge of the water line to the sand. Exit the quick mask. Now you have a selection that is gradated from 100 percent selected to 0 percent selected. In other words, you have a nice selection of the sand area.
Step 9
Now use the Layers Palette and add a new adjustment layer. When you create an adjustment layer, whatever was selected turns into a layer mask for that adjustment layer. Select Selective Color from the adjustment layer menu located at the bottom of the layers palette. Since this area is fairly neutral, we'll be using the colors white, neutrals, and blacks. See below for the exact values. Notice I've used the Relative method. That adds and subtracts color from the source in proportion to how much of that color is present in the source pixels. This gives more natural effects. If you use Absolute, it adds the percentage you specified regardless of how much of that color was already present in the image.
Step 10
Let's check how our layers and images look at this point by viewing the images below.
Step 11
We're looking pretty good. One last big thing: that umbrella, very washed out, and a blue umbrella on a blue sky is not the best choice. Let's make it pop by making it orange. First, isolate the light blue parts. Since the shapes were pretty simple, I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool. You can also create paths, use the quick mask feature, or even use extract like we did earlier in this tute. Doesn't matter how you do it, just get a selection of the blue parts of the umbrella shade.
I've selected the light blue areas. Now they are isolated. Let's create another Selective Color adjustment layer. See below for the exact values I used. Unlike the hue/saturation adjustment, you can make really broad color shifts without a lot of the artifacts and overly saturated pixels showing up.
Step 12
Since I maxed out the blacks in the neutral color channels, I decided to use yet another selective color adjustment layer in order to bump the contrast a little more. Press Command and Click the layer mask of the umbrella's selective color adjustment layer. That will turn the mask into a selection. Make a new selective color adjustment layer. You just need to bump the black up in the neutral channel to darken it down a bit.
Step 13
From here on out, it's the fine details that really make an image appear finished. The chairs' fabric backs need some pumping up. That can be accomplished the same way as with the umbrella by using our new friend the selective color adjustment layer. The woman has some back fat sticking out. That's not attractive. Let's get rid of that in a nondestructive way.
With the foreground layer selected, lasso the woman's arm. Press Command+J. That puts the selection on its own layer. Now you can clone, stretch, and manipulate the new copy without destroying any of the original pixels. Same with the man's face; he's got some 5 o'clock shadow. Overall, his face is a too dark. Lasso it, copy it to a new layer, and experiment away.
Conclusion
That's it! This process is how I start all of my photo-editing projects. We spent the time in the beginning to isolate the foreground subjects on their own layer. A lot of our masks are very simple to make. You'll also notice that I haven't touched any of the original base photo pixels. These nondestructive techniques make it easy to go backwards or start over.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Bogus April 7th
pretty good
( )Robert Jakobson April 7th
Hello, I am just starting out as a designer and this is just what I need, when designing almost anything – because it is so simple, but yet even most advanced web designers do not do this with their material. Really reflects well on ones standards of quality if this is used on most of the sites one makes.
( )Jared April 7th
As always, a great tutorial, but I only have one complaint – there’s no final picture! I’d like to see how your umbrella looks when it’s orange.
I always scroll to the bottom of the post to see the final image so I have an idea of where you’re going during the tutorial, but I can’t in this one…
( )Erika April 7th
I do the same thing as Jared, so imagine my confusion when I saw that it wasn’t there!
Hope you guys choose to make the edit!
( )Sean Hodge April 7th
Hi all,
Thanks for bringing that to our attention. That’s my editing mistake. I’ve placed the final image we have on hand at the moment. It is watermarked, though you can still see the final effect. I’ll work on getting a none-watermarked version to replace it as soon as possible. Thanks.
( )Colin April 7th
and i have a trip planned for the beach this summer! but hell 19 posts a month….will i remember this one!? i hope!
( )Enes Kaya April 7th
very nice and professional
( )Arnaud April 7th
Summer :’(
( )Lamin Barrow April 7th
Pretty basic but great tutorial anyways.
( )Jared April 7th
I’m sorry, but this tutorial and the previous one posted yesterday with the logo design are NOT up to par with the quality of tutorials that I have come to expect from PSDTuts. While the techniques used in this design are good, the final result of this image is absolutely appalling. It looks far from natural and it is clear that the background has been replaced, especially around the umbrella. Photo effects are supposed to make an image enhanced and yet still natural, not clearly Photoshopped and fake.
I sincerely hope that we can expect higher quality tutorials in the future.
( )Ian April 7th
When the name of the tutorial is “Enhance Your Image with Selective Color Adjustments,” you can bet I’ll be disappointed when the first “enhancing” step involves replacing the background with a better looking one.
( )kailoon April 7th
Jared – Yup, agree with you. It is a good tutorial but the final output not so promising so far.
PSDtuts – keep it up!
( )RAFi April 7th
Sorry, but this is crap tutorial. To customize picture by adjusting colors or increasing/decreasing selective color value you can do this much faster and precisely by HUE/SATURATION values.
( )Maybe idea of this tutorial is good, but “step by step” is made very bad. I agree with kailoon.
tbone April 7th
Wicked stuff, thanks Ash.
Personally, I learned a lot here – I used a few layer adjustments but I never knew about selective colour nor extract, and its always good to see the way someone else works. Coincidentally, I was using a picture of sand and just touching it up as well, so I hit the history button a few times and copied you here.
Thanks again mate.
( )Matthias April 7th
Sorry but you’ve made a very nice picture a crap.
( )Terry April 7th
…
( )Supernov@ April 7th
Agree with comments.. not the best tutorial I’ve read in this website. The final image look like there’s Photoshop all over the place.
( )Ben April 7th
We would love to see some of your own tutorials RAFi/Jared/others. I agree with you, the final image does not look all that natural. However, keep in mind these are free tutorials. And since you are already on the level that you see different/better solutions then suggested in this tutorial, I personally would love to see a tutorial from your hands. Maybe you can learn us a nice trick or two.
Thats what the internet and cookies is all about. Sharing
( )Ross Hill April 7th
I love most of the tutorials here but I had to leave the rss reader to make a comment here : you’ve destroyed the photo. While the original is colourless, the ‘new’ one looks like it belongs on my old 486 pc in some new ‘colorful’ computer game.
( )therapix April 7th
Good use of masks
( )Ben Griffiths April 7th
It’s a little rough around the edges, but the ideas are sound, thanks!
( )Zach April 7th
c’mon u guys, i think ur slipping, trying to make big quotas at the end of the month, that your allowing in tutorials that just don’t cut it. i’m all for making goals, and id love a psd tut-a-day, but n ot a tut like this. u huys are the best tutorial site on the planet, but some of these tutorials aren’t.
hope this helps,
-zach
( )Johan April 7th
Whoa… Going downhill with the tutorials are we? Was someone actually payed $125 for that?
( )I was intent on getting a plus account, but I’m not so sure anymore…
steve April 7th
Def slipping , this is a bad layout of a tutorial , horribly explained and truly not on par with what has been up i hope i didnt pay for plus to see tutorials that someone reading any photoshop book could just re hash on the this page.
( )Sorry for the brutal honesty but this was a bad one.
Sarah April 8th
wow…Great tutorial. I am just going to try this.
( )Z-man April 8th
I’m going to have to agree with some of the other comments on here. PSD-TUT’s really isn’t made for the “n00b” designer. I just think it would be a shame to start seeing tutorials that do stuff like, “cropping”, “contrast”, and other dumb VERY beginner concepts.
I’m very disappointed with this tutorial.
and some of the other recent tutorials.
( )Roy April 8th
I love it
Lovely to cheat
( )Dan April 8th
I have to agree with the comments above regarding the lack of quality in these recent tutorials. When I first discovered PSD tuts a while back ALL of the tutorials were very unique, creative, and even inspiring. But lately it does seem as if there is a quota that needs to be hit. Personally, I think the quality was much better when there was less postings of new tutorials. I don’t even do any of these tutorials, but I enjoyed coming here looking at the level of creativity that was involved and how everything was achieved.
All in all, PSD Tuts is still an awesome community.
(just need to reconsider the quality of tutorials lately)
Thx,
Dan
( )Manuel Merz April 8th
Wow guys if one or two tutorials aren’t the quality you would love to see then just shut up, okay? Nobody says you have to do them, alright?
( )web design cheltenham April 8th
nice tutorial have found this very helpful keep up the good work.
( )Daniel April 8th
Hi,
nice tutorual but I’m not a fan of photo retouching…
Want a new Designing Tut
Daniel
( )Germansn April 8th
nice
( )Andrew D April 8th
Pretty cool
( )Jeff April 8th
Wow, I didn’t think it was THAT bad.
( )diktat April 8th
you didn’t adjust the colour of the people
( )they look so washed out when the rest of the picture is so saturated. the sky should be a milder colour, imo.
Shane April 8th
It seems quite a few comments alude to great Photoshop talent amongst PSDTuts readers.
This one wasn’t amongst the best, but let’s hope we get many contributions from some readers.
( )BogDinamita April 8th
lol I love the original pic wouldn’t've even retouched it. not this way for sure
( )alltard April 8th
i got censored before, which i think is unnecessary so ill say it again, your subjects look like corpses and the umbrella looks blown out and out of place. If i was the art director on this there would be red marks all over it.
( )Chris April 8th
Just my input, but I agree with the majority of the other PSDTuts readers here. Don’t let the quality of tutorials go down just because you’re trying to put out 20 posts a month. You’d be better off doing 10 GREAT tutorials, rather than 20 “meh” tutorials.
Oh, and before someone tells me, “They’re free! Shut up and leave if you don’t like them!” There’s a COMMENT form here for a reason – allowing users to COMMENT on the article, whether they be positive or negative comments.
( )Chris April 8th
Oh, and an addendum to my previous comment: the whole tutorial can be accomplished without replacing the sky, (and a much less “Photoshopped” effect) by simply finding a nice beach picture and running Match Color (with Neutralize checked) and playing around with the blue curves a bit.
( )typeministry April 8th
This site ‘was’ really starting to outshine the hundreds of photoshop tutorial websites already out there. Since everyone here will be at different levels of photoshop experience and benefit from varied tutorials, as a suggestion would it not be useful to offer a novice & professional section? Me personally, I would rather wait a week for a ‘great’ tutorial, than perhaps get a below average tutorial everyday. The quality of the content is what really separated this site from others, would be a shame to lose that.
Quality, not quantity.
( )The Rock April 8th
@Chris, typeministry: well said.
( )JokR April 8th
Seems like a whole lot of work for just adjusting the colors for one single picture . . . I used to work at a digital photo lab and all I used was just LEVELS and CONTRAST. However I can’t say that this is a bad tutorial because I’ve learned a lot of new techniques so thnx man and keep up the good work
( )Kajuah April 8th
Lotta talkers here but no doers…A lot of people seem to think they can do better. So i hope to see 10 + tutorials from the complainers about how much of a bettet tutorial they can write next week.
I thought this tut was just fine, it is, afterall, a tutorial. If you don’t like the result then create something more appealing using your own *masterful* techniques that farrrr surpass the quality of what the bloggers on this site make.
*Ahem* Idiots.
( )Chris April 8th
@Kajuah: I’ll repost this for your convenience. If you’d like to see my feelings about this article, please see my complete comment above.
There’s a COMMENT form here for a reason – allowing users to COMMENT on the article, whether they be positive or negative comments.
*Ahem* Idiots.
( )Coolguy April 8th
this is one of the best tutorials ive ever seen and ive been working for years in design. keep up the great up ashley! i wanna see more from u
( )Joefrey Mahusay April 8th
Nice one! Thanks
( )Aminur Rahman [aka Tom R] April 8th
I just spent more time reading the comment than the tutorial itself ïŠ I guess the readers over here are merely asking for the quality tutorial like always from PSPtuts and expressing their feelings, there is no need to call someone idiots. Just a thought…
( )lukxiufung April 8th
calm down … peace
Aminur – hahha I agree with you.
( )god056 April 8th
lol
Same with me. Looks like I’ve been reading through comments more often than reading through the tuts and learning something.
Anyway, about the tut. The stock photo was good enough to be used somewhere for ads. I should point out though while it is good enough for some, doesn’t mean that it’s good enough for all. I find the final output still usable, and would still serve purpose (for ads) if the client would be wanting a bit more color shown.
And yea, there were a lot of steps and tweaking involved. Which might be a reason why some are hating what was done with the pic.
( )Daniel April 8th
Interesting techniques used here. nice tutorial.
( )Collis April 8th
hehe I must admit, maybe fading the image back a few percent might have improved the adjustment. Still there’s always something useful in every tutorial, so I say thanks Ashley for contributing!
( )Constantin Potorac April 8th
As I mentioned before. A new lesson is always welcomed.
Collis is right and I agree with him.
You guys must understand that tutorials sometimes don’t teach you how to be creative, tutorials sometimes just give you a hint / some tips and show you how to achieve some great effects so you can play with what you learned and use these knowledges later on.
Maybe this tutorial is not that amazing and maybe it does not have that “wow” factor, but as a designer and a image retoucher I admit that this effect Ashley just showed to us is real great and we can use it in many creative ways.
One thing I don’t like is not about this tutorial but about the community. As many of you know I like this community a lot.
I don’t want to say “Hey guys stop posting your negative opinions” – this is a good thing for the designer to improve his abilities – but I would very much appreciate it if you could stop swearing, talking dirty or insult other users and be more professional when you explain your point of view.
Thank you Ashley for a simple but interesting and useful tutorial.
( )reader April 9th
i want to see some tuts from COLLIS!!!
( )Jay April 9th
Yeah sadly the quality of the tutorials has really slid since they launch of the PSDTUTS Plus stuff. I realize the site needs to make money, but I think the quality of the tutorials has been greatly sacrificed in the name of profits.
As others have stated, I’d rather see one “great” tutorial a week rather than 5 mediocre (or just plain bad) tutorials in that same time.
( )b00m April 10th
Nice
( )Tom April 10th
I think it wouldn’t hurt to put some tutorials here about learning photography. The design techniques on this site are fantastic, but the photography skills here leave a lot to be desired. I would suggest for a photo like this to avoid it in the first place. Take a better photo! I know its easier said than done when you may not have access to a beach, but just stay away! OR… I think this one would be helped more by curves adjustments and layer masks than replacing the background. I’m going to try to do it once I get on a computer w/photoshop!
( )Vijay Prabhakar April 10th
The result is not that good. Could be better
( )Harry April 12th
Awesome tut
makes me miss summer 
( )ps3 blog April 12th
nice tutorial wondering if anyone has a technique for creating the sin city effect or where i could buy a plug in to acheive a similar result
( )Mark Abucayon April 13th
really pretty great tut again for this one.. love it.
( )Mchilly April 14th
Great tutorial, yes I agree about the umbrella it should also have a better orange color too.
( )modemlooper April 15th
great tut. This could have easily been done without the need to cut a paste from another photo. Use colorizing techniques.
( )Mathias Vagni June 28th
yep. Just what I was thinking.
( )Manolo April 17th
Just think that should work better on matching the couple color to the rest of image. Increasing the light on them because you added a really blue bright sky but the couple still too dark making it too easy to spot that the image was retouched.
( )SneakyGringo April 21st
I think that photo looked more professional before the tutorial was applied. the colour in the retouched version is too extreme; granted the original looks a little blanched, but the the finished retouch looks a bit too garish and loud. I prefer the original image, it’s more refined. Colour is very sensitive territory and the handling here just comes off too heavy handed for me.
( )Justas May 9th
Doesn’t look real
, colors are too intense
( )TH May 14th
There could have been many other easier ways to do this but nice outcome nontheless.
( )George June 5th
I like the original photo better!
( )thank you for the tutorial!
Orestes June 27th
Thanks for the tut!
( )I learned some techniques here, anyway I agree with the folks above..the result insn’t great..
I find the original pic really nice instead!
Mansoor July 24th
Thanks for Posting.
( )Good Tut.
Graphics@SBL- designing service | Logo design | Brochure design August 15th
It’s informative.
Regards,
( )GRAPHICS@SBL
DjiNN June 19th
“Enhance Your Image with Selective Color Adjustment”
( )so I thought there is no need for other pictures to be involve beside the one that is going to be edited.
but I learn alot though.
could be better but thanks anyway!
Robert Tèo July 30th
I don’t like retouch too much.
( )Fuad Ahasan Chowdhury August 23rd
actually it depends.. sometimes you need to do it because client need it. We’ve to do these sort of things almost 50-60% of times.
-
( )Fuad Ahasan Chowdhury
Design Consultant
Clippingimages August 23rd
The final output is not at all up to the mark.
( )jmarreros September 29th
Extract filter doesn’t exist in Photoshop CS4, you have to download it
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4047
In CS4 you can use the Refine Edges option.
( )