Advanced Color Correction (#62)

By the way, I delivered three very popular workshops at this year’s Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) meeting held in Springfield, Illinois in September. You can watch a video of all three of these seminars here on at the Photo Grafix Blog.

Photo with uneven exposure

This one has areas that are over exposed in the front of the picture. We must darken the lightest middle section to match the normal looking background sections. In the video, I go through the following steps in detail:

1. Duplicate the background layer.
2. Choose the Burn Tool, underneath the Dodge Tool.
3. Burn Shadows. Keep exposure around 30%.
4. Use soft edge brush. 0% hardness.
5. Swipe with the brush.
6. Undo and redo to check progress.

Someone upchucked on my photo!

Typically, when their are stains of any kind on a photo, it may only show up in one or more channels of color. Sometimes if you can isolate the color in a channel, you'll have an easier time...cleaning it up. Here's what I cover in this edition's video portion:

1. Check all channels to see where most of the stain is.
2. Layer = New Adjustment Layer = Black and white
3. Click on the stain and hold
4. Layer = New Adjustment Layer = Levels
5. Adjust edges of the sliders on the histogram.
6. Brighten up the middle.
7. Click on Background Layer, hold down.
8. Clean up with Clone Tool, Healing Brush, etc.

Advanced color correction for a terrible camera-phone picture

From time-to-time, folks ask me about working Adobe Photoshop's Channels Panel/Palette. This is a very powerful—and oft-times confusing—function. It takes lots of practice through experimentation and research. However, the results can be very rewarding if you are diligent. The major steps I cover in the video portion:

1. Open Channels Palette.
2. Open Curves, go to midtones
3. Color correction is a subjective endeavor.
4. Create Hue and Saturation Layer.
5. Check out each channel.
6. Image = Duplicate Image (check Merged), name it "Source."
7. Flatten the Layers.
8. Image = Mode = CMYK color.
9. Check out the channels of C, M, Y and K
10. Image = Apply Image and set your source.
11. Bring opacity down.
12. Choose the Green channel and use Apply Image and make Black in the CMYK version your source. Set 100% Multiply.
13. Duplicate the Background Layer.
14. Change blending mode from normal to multiply and drop opacity down.

That's all for this edition! If you find this article useful, please return the favor! Share it or Like it using any of the share buttons below. Send your questions and problem photos, your location—and genealogical society affiliation if appropriate—to Eric for future "Ask The Retoucher" columns. Visit Photo Grafix online for more information.

Eric runs Photo Grafix, a humble photo-retouching studio in Evanston, Illinois (USA). He's taught hundreds through the methods of his Photo Restoration Basics course. If he doesn't know the answer, he won't rest until he finds it. Eric Basir is at your service: With each "Ask The Retoucher" article, he'll help you successfully tackle your digital photographic problems. 

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—Edited by Judy Bond. Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved.