I love the amount of details you gave in your instructions through this tutorial. Great example. Looking forward to more from you.

Thanks!!!
The best site!!!!

Thanks.it helps

Great Tut, im going to have a closer look at it when it comes to retouch my photos.

Nice

Your Message…cool but no Amazing

good tutorial but i think colours differ per photograph, sometimes warm colours work better, sometimes a colder touch an improve the photo.

“therefore, red corresponds to green, green corresponds to magenta and blue corresponds to yellow.”

red corresponds to cyan maybe?

good job!

Thx 4

well done. I want more “quick tips” like these from PSDTUTS…

ok i just can’t get what you doin…which eyedropper, there are three and exactly where’d u click????

I’m with mexxik on this one, I’m pretty sure red’s corresponding color is cyan.

A nice, back-to-basics, tut. Thank you!

I guess there is need of littlebit more details….

Nice quick fix.

For colour correction and all that, I must admit i prerfer either the Camera RAW module that photoshop has, or Lightroom. Both are excellent tools, they both make it much easyer, and you feel a lot less limited when using them. But, thanks for the tutorial. I always wanted one for the curve tool, as I never really got around to using it.

It’s nice to know about the possibility of using curves that way – but I have to say that I much prefer the before to the after. Having the “correct” colors isn’t always preferable.

muito fraco este tutorial!

Anyone, who knows a bit about color correction knows that it needs to be done in CMYK, to have an effective control on the channels.

How do you get rid of a color dominance in RGB? with feeling? come on. you can’t. and you can’t get proper inking rates neither for a print output.

Plus, the tut doesn’t cover much, it would have been nice talk about the color sampler tool and the informations palette in relation with the curve adjustments.

great tutorial! thank you!

Nice tutorial, but the colours doesn’t look quite right (*). The reason is that you forgot to convert your Adobe RGB image to sRGB before saving for web. What’s happening now is that our browsers take your image’s Adobe RGB colour spectre, and distribute them over the sRGB spectre, which is known to mess up the colours.

That might also be the reason why Melody prefer the before to the after.

(*) Except those (extremely few) of us who have turned colour management ON in Firefox, or who use Safari.

Ok…but not outstanding

nothing that we didn’t already know really – surprised this got through to be totally honest. Hardly the site’s usual standard…

0) Calibrate monitor.

1) Convert to Lab.

2) Make Curves Adjustment Layer.

3) Pull the dark end of the a and b channels to compress them a little, removing some yellow and orange, but with the side effect of making the white space green. (Dark end of a will be input: -109, output: -128. Dark end of b will be: in: -75, out: -128.)

4) Use Blending Options on the adjustment layer: Pull the white end of L down by about 1/3 of the slider length for ‘this layer.’ Option-click the slider to split it and give a smoother transition. (numbers: 200/226)

This use of blending options would be impossible in RGB mode.

End up with an image that retains some of the warmth of the subject material while also not just being an orange wash. For material that requires a less subjective color balance change, you’d move the a and b layers in a linear fashion, meaning for every offset at the dark end you’d have a corresponding offset at the light end.

Enjoy.

Oh, and step 5: Hector the photographer about color balance and proper exposure.

Nice explanation, but I also wonder if you have those correspondences correct.

“red corresponds to green, green corresponds to magenta and blue corresponds to yellow”.

You have green in there twice, but didn’t mention cyan.

Tom H.
“nothing that we didn’t already know really”

You might know it, but the point of a tutorial is to educate and inform. I’m sure many here found it helpful. Perhaps it doesn’t delve into many extreme and complex issues, but it served its purpose.

Good tut. I need to stop using curves, though. I use them too much.

Thanks for the quick but very useful tip

Short and great, thanks.

@Tom

I think it is good for them to post tutorials such as this because although a lot of the viewers coming to this site are more skilled than the average joe ps user some aren’t.

I know many people I have directed to this website in order for them to learn more PS and it is tutorials like this that are great for those friends of mine because they aren’t very knowledgable in Photoshop and this tutorial was extremely well written and well explained. A lot of the tutorials on here are more advanced and require a lot of knowledge of Photoshop to accomplish so it is great to see the ones such as this being put in the mix.

Great write Asia…I hope to see a lot more from you.

@mexxik

cyan is not an option since we’re in RGB, not CMYK

just so you know…

wow … this is incredible tuts i think.
You explain color theory very well.

now i am understand about color correction.

thanks to you

Thank you for all the feedback. I understand that this tutorial may not be as great as most tutorials on PSDTUTS but I believe something less complicated should be allowed as well. I, too, understand that the final result may not be the best result due to the personal preferences, therefore, please treat it as a guide to acquire new skills and learn how to modify it to get a desired product.

Thank you Very Much, and i hope that u share more think with all

Most of the pros that I have worked with do not know all of the uses of the Curves adjustment. It is probably the most complicated thing outside the LAB color mode in Photoshop. Levels is quite simple compared to it.

This is not only for the starters. Tips like these are important because sometimes when I work some other very experienced photographer/retoucher/designer does not understand how to seamlessly correct stuff with Curves. It is quite suprising really how little most of the people, some of which are quite succesful in the trade, remember about it.

I mean they know a trick or two, but there is no understanding. Of course they try to pretend and play competent, but I can just directly and angrily point them to these types of tutorials to get their understanding in order.

They complain that I treat them like children, but truth be told – people who do not use the Curves Adjustment daily in their creative “flow” forget it. They remember just the “good old S-curve” and thats it. Never underestimate peoples ability to forget the basic tools of Photoshop – if not used it is forgotten in a month by 90% of the population.

oh, and jonasil – wrong.

CYMK colors can be manipulated with the curves as well, just they are the opposite of the RGB – In example – You bring the value of the Blue channel down and the value of Yellow in the portion of the picture being targeted rises. And mexxic (sorry for the spelling, really) is correct Red corresponds to Cyan. Same thing – bring the Red down and Cyan rises.

English is not my native language so really sorry for the grammar.

useful color correction / thx .. more tuts like this !

Limerance

With all due respect, there wasn’t much vital information that could make or break a design in here.
I don’t mean to be bad about this tutorial, but I think that the standard of this is considerably lower than the rest.
What could improve this tutorial is if it delved into more ways on how to use the curve tool, and explain it more. For example, switching the curve direction completely turns the image negative.
As you’ve said, some members here aren’t good at photoshop, some are. A way to compensate for both is to incorporate both simple descriptions as to what it does, for example, “If you alter the lower end of the line, it alters the darker part of the image.” And some for the more experienced users such as, “By created X pattern, this can be made, and by altering the output to X, this can be performed.”
This tutorial didn’t even touch on the simple ‘S’ curve, which drastically improves a photograph.

Sorry, but in my opinion, this needs a lot of work.

Am I the only one who likes the warm tones of the original better? Maybe tone them down a bit, but the result doesn’t improve the image in my opinion…

To all those who wrote something like cool but not amaizing just PLEASE keep in mind out there are not all ppl such “advanced” as you. I understand the desire to get the next tutorial u read on a higher lvl then the precedent one but no1 is makin` tuts that will fit EXACTLY you’r needs. For me this is a GREAT tutorial, i take from everyone of them what i need, there are always things i didnt knew about ar never used, etc. Show respect for the tut writer, for the time he/she took to share with us and keep in mind it`s free This is my opinion, and what makes a tut good is the way he/she explains, pure and simple and understandable. It just leaves me a bitter taste when i see this comments like: ah ok, not so great… i think this shows nothing but a little respect for the writer …

Thank you very much Asia !

quick and easy

I’m not sure why my message don’t come though here, but everyone else’s do, so here goes (again):
Nice tutorial, but the colours doesn’t look quite right (*). The reason is that you forgot to convert your Adobe RGB image to sRGB before saving for web. What’s happening now is that our browsers take your image’s Adobe RGB colour spectre, and distribute them over the sRGB spectre, which is known to mess up the colours.
That might also be the reason why Melody prefer the before to the after.
(*) Except those (extremely few) of us who have turned colour management ON in Firefox, or who use Safari.

…certainly useful insight for many who visit here…

…color is a massive area to dive into really, and to be “absolute” about it is very subjective, and to also be “mr picky”, color correction is not quite the right term, as it is more “color adjusting” toward some kind of balance, the correct color would be unknown really (except to the person taking the picture)…

…i mean, was her jumper really that grey, or her hair that yellow?

…anyway, color adjusting of any kind for printing purposes is better on a decent monitor with decent calibrating kit to hand, otherwise your shooting in the wind into the blue sky…

I’ve been using Curves adjustments for a while now, but this tutorial helped in providing some of the technical explanations behind it all. Gave more rhyme and reason to it, as opposed to just trial and error which is what I was doing before.

thankkk youuu

Ok, If your monitor is not calibrated, I can’t trust what I see on screen!

Realy turorial… nice work …. thank you

Thx, great !!!

A nice beginners tutorial.
But some small improvements could be added.
1. Red is complementary to cyan, not green (as mentioned by many others).

2. Add a link to a good description of the color circle, and the RGB and CMYK color mode. And then mention that you are correcting a picture in RGB mode for this particular tut.

3. Save the picture in sRGB color space (which is for web). The difference is small, but noticable.

4. Last, but most important change: If you only have ONE reference point on the curve, dragging it up or down will ALWAYS result in a curved line where the CENTER of the curve is farthest from the original line. This is regardless of where the point is, highlights or shadows. Check it out on the graphs above. The shape of the curve is always the same.
If you want to change the color more in the highlights than in the shadows you need at least TWO points on the curve.

So, you added Blue(=reduce Yellow) and reduced Red with only one reference point.
So, you just EVENLY removed an orange cast from the picture.

Add the 4 changes and you have a perfect beginners tut that has been well explained.

enjoyed the step by step explanations. Some of the good tutorials are the ones you understand without necessarily being in photoshop and following every step. i liked this.

Back to the basics.

That is why I dislike this tutorial.
It’s an ok-(sort of) idea to deal with, especially changing colours, but there is a lot of information left out.

There is a definite need for explanation.

I’m with youri and VR on this one…

Maybe the full realism isn’t what the photo needs. There is in fact a great source of light coming from the right, and it is absolutely normal and natural that this light will influence the tones on the subject.
The yellows serve a purpose to match the girls mood, it is like a poetic license to go out the ABSOLUTELY REAL.
Maybe tone down a little bit, but the after picture is colder than it should be.

This tutorial is simply one of the lowest in the level in here. I am very sorry but before you start to write tutorials for others find out more about the topic. This things you’ve presented in here are more for basic home usage instead of a professional one.

Besides the final effect of your entire work is quite far from the perfection.

Try better next time. Greetings.

OK… maybe she did a mistake with the picture’s choice, but what really matters here is the tecnique.

BTW, great tip!

Pain in the butt way to color correct when there are way better, WAY easier methods out there.

Thanks for this great tip. With Curves, you can easily make a photo standout. cheers!

i’m new inphotoshop and this tutorial for color correction helps me a lot especially when correcting my photos after I have taken it…

hope to hear more tuts from you…

nice work my Brother:)

For me it looks better before than after

not that great i did so many things like this

Some people may already be well aware of how to colour correct using curves but not everyone has the same level of experience, thus why not have tuts like this posted as they are sure to be helpful to many people.

that’s amazing effects there is this beautiful tutorial, really nice stuff, thanks.

“Psdtuts+ is a blog/Photoshop site made to house and showcase some of the best Photoshop tutorials around.”

If the site describes itself as such, then readers will have high expectations. This tutorial is nowhere near what it should be to fit this description.

Nice one lol

This tutorial is misleading. If you want to apply colour correction to specific tones in an image (shadows, highlights etc.), you need to add more than one anchor point to each colour curve (R, G or B).

Thank you !! very useful.