The ONLY Way to Steal Color Grading That Works 100%!!! - Photoshop Tutorial

do you want to know the secret technique to extract colors from one image and just apply it on the other well I'm so sorry to tell you that there isn't one most of the times we have to use our common sense now I know that we have created videos on techniques to Simply copy colors using curves using the three points and all of those techniques are fantastic but the thing is there is no one technique that works with every image every image is a challenge so in this video we're going to be talking about the common sense that you can use to easily go through this color matching process so that no matter what is thrown at you you can use your logic to move up the steps and get the results you want so without any further Ado let's get started back in the magical world of Photoshop and if you wish to go ahead and download this photo and follow along you my friend already know what to do check the links in the description so this is the image that we're going to be calibrating and this is our reference now the very first thing very first Common Sense thing to do is to just make a copy and paste it alongside press Ctrl or command a to select all Ctrl or command C to copy and just simply paste it right here Ctrl or command V you already knew that just keep it at the side just like this you can also extend the canvas it's up to you now at first glance it might just seem only the colors are different and we can use one of those crazy techniques to match the color but if you take a step back and look at the overall big picture you will notice that the whole composition and the lighting everything is different most of the light is from the back and there's a little bit of fill light filling up the subject Also let's take a look at the background and the subject there is a stark difference the subject is much brighter than the background but in this case the subject is very similar to the background in brightness so let's first fix the brightness and the contrast issues so to remove all the colors from distracting us let's create a Luminosity checklist and how do we do that simply create a solid color adjustment layer at the top choose gray black white anything that doesn't have any saturation hit OK and change the blend mode from normal to color now all of those colors are gone now the first thing we notice is the contrast between the subject and the background so it would be wise to Target the subject and the background separately let me give you a tip to select the subject you can use a more accurate technology in the later versions of Photoshop just select any of these selection tools object selection quick selection or magic wand and add the top next to select subject just click on that Arrow choose cloud and click on select subject it does a much better job of selecting the subject now with the selection active let's create a curves adjustment layer and let's create one more curves adjustment layer just make a copy of that with a curves adjustment layer selected press Ctrl or command J and in this select the mask and then press Ctrl or command I to invert the mask and this is for the subject it and this one is for the background let's work with the background first the first thing we match is the highlights in this case it is the sky you can use the hand right there it makes it very easy the reference is just next to it just click on the sky and bring it down and stop at the point where it matches and it pretty much matches now behind the subject these areas are very dark so let's bring them down as well let's create a point right here simply bring them down to the point where it looks all right to you now it's time for us to work on the subject you would notice that the subject is not as bright so let's come to the subject curves adjustment layer and also we're going to use the hand right here and actually we can take the brightest point and just bring it down now do keep in mind the skin tones of both of these subjects are different we don't have to create an exact match for skin tones also the hair color is different so just keep in mind the overall feel of the image rather than particular areas now you would also notice that the ground on which the subject is standing is a little brighter so let's make it brighter it is in the background so let's select the background and in this layer we are basically making everything darker so let's remove the darkness away from the bottom and how do we do that select the gradient tool right here and let's choose a gradient from foreground to transparent inside of the basics and set the foreground color to Black and simply drag in a gradient there we go but that's too much let's do something like this that's a little better we are already so close isn't it also you can add your own style to it these areas are completely losing details you can add a little bit of fade by taking the leftmost point up there we go that's nice now if you want to take it a step further look at the sky it is seeping in so let's create something for it as well create one more curves adjustment layer and this time we're just going to take the leftmost point and take it up just focus on this area it needs to match with that of the image and now select the mask press Ctrl or command I choose a gradient and you can choose a regular gradient and let's drag in white to black that's it you can always tweak this let's bring it to the side and we can just tweak the seepingness nature of it you can also use the brush tool up to you but it just takes it up a notch see how we are using the common sense looking at the image looking at what's missing and just taking action for it let me quickly name the layer so that you can keep track of what's Happening Now I would highly recommend that you go ahead and take a break and then get back to your image after all you need to stand between work otherwise it's not good for health anyway and when you do get back you will realize what you thought was amazing is not amazing anymore and you might need to make some changes in this case I feel the subject needs a little more Dimension let's open up the subject curves adjustment layer by double clicking right here and let's make the highlights a little brighter have a look at the reference the highlights are brighter relatively so let's make the highlights brighter like this and make these areas darker use the hand and just click and drag it down but then again these areas need to be a little brighter as well now that looks better than before that is why brakes are essential so now that we have taken care of the brightness and the contrast and they look almost identical let's take care of the color first of all let's turn off the Luminosity check layer and by the way this is a good time to market the picks and perfect compositing panel if you want to do anything in compositing although this video is not about compositing all of those techniques that we have talked about in hundreds of compositing videos you will find a shortcut to it right here for example creating a check layer as well so if you wanted to create a brightness checklist just click on it and it does the exact same thing and you can just click on it to deactivate it and it gets deleted and if you want to create a brightness check layer and adjust something based on it just activate it create a new adjustment layer by clicking on this and it will create a curves adjustment layer now it is creating a clip layer because this panel is for compositing and we are targeting the subject if you are creating a saturation check layer and click on this button it will create a hue saturation adjustment layer so everything related to compositing you'll find it right here if you want to check out the viximperfect compositing panel check the links in the description back to the project we just turned off the Luminosity checklet you can even delete it now to match the colors again take a step back and look at the entire image if we try to match the color by simply creating a curves adjustment layer it just won't work because there's a lot of colors here and if you look at this image there is one single warm tone going through the entire image even if I try to color it with curves it will just jumble up everything else so let's say I wanted to make these Hills yellow so I would have to go to Blues decrease the blues using the hand right here and then go to Greens decrease the greens and then maybe go to Reds do something and then go to RGB make them brighter and as I try to do this you will notice that everything else is also changing color so as I told you every image is different and not one technique will work all the time really the simplest thing that we can do is just take a step back and think we need to color it in such a way that it's actually coloring the image in a uniform tone and not so much affecting the subject so how do we do that gradient Maps let's take away the curves and create a gradient map click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose gradient map and we need to create a map of these colors right here so single click right here the color on the right hand side will color the highlights and that is why the sky is black right here and the color on the left hand side will color the Shadows so let us sample these colors and apply it right here so select the slider on the right and then you can pick colors using this or just double clicking on the slider right now if you try to pick colors it is not picking anything but only white why is it happening well let's hit cancel for now it is happening because the mask is selected and the mask is on white Adobe really needs to fix this I've been asking for this for years I I don't know why the default is always a mask we have to make sure that the symbol of the adjustment layer is selected and then try sampling click on the right slider let's sample the bright colors like this also make sure that sample all layers is checked otherwise it won't sample from topless you can also keep the sample size at three by three or five by five average so that you don't accidentally sample a noise pixel so for the highlights let's pick this color that seems to be about right the brightness is 83. remember that and let's set the location of this slider to 83. there you go for the left hand side single click and let's pick this color take a look the brightness is at 23. hit OK and we're gonna place it at 23. now this is just a rule of thumb now here let's pick a darker color like this one or this one right here so let's create one more slider by simply clicking here and let's pick this color right here we'll also try this color as well brightness 9 hit OK so let's set it to nine we can actually move it a little bit to the left as well just to have a smoother transition and now let's pick a lighter color like this one let's create another slider right here let's pick this color this is at 71.72 let's keep it at 72. now you can sample as many colors as you like so I'm going to create one more right here this is just fun to do and this is at 46 hit okay 46. it was actually accurate and again to have a smoother transition let's take the right most slider to the right as well this seems about right you can always make changes to it and now it's the moment of truth let's zoom out and take a look yes it is matching but we only want it to match the colors and that's it so change the blend mode from normal to color and again that's too much let's decrease the opacity to about 72. also we didn't want it so much on the subject so how do we take it away you already have a mask of the subject right here so hold the alt clear the option key click and drag and drop it right here replace yes we want just the opposite of it Ctrl or command I we also want a little bit on the subject so decrease the density of the Mask so with the mask selected open up the properties if you cannot see the properties for a window and then make sure properties is checked it is just like opacity for the mask so let's decrease it to about fifty percent round figure and there you go but it does have a little bit punch to it you know what gives an image a little warm punch in Photoshop our favorite crisp worm again we are just using logic this is not a technique if you notice that you're missing something and if you know what fills that Gap just do it this is not the only way to do it click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose color lookup and let's go ahead and choose crisp warm and it instantly instantly brings it closer let's decrease the opacity we don't want that much about 40 is fine now tell me what you want to do now if in the background you want a little more yellowness right here you can go to the background right here go to blues and then try bringing it down see what it does let's go to green and bring that down as well and we are getting similar colors now you can try a little bit of Reds and then go to RGB and try to balance that a bit there you go it's even more matching now you can just go on and on if you think the dress she's wearing is a little too yellow you can just create a mask right here and mask it out for example select the gradient map adjustment layer press Ctrl or command G and create a mask that way you have two masks of the same adjustment layer so that you don't disturb this mask and now you can take a brush black is the foreground color and get the colors back there you go you can even brighten this a little bit again so many options so many things you can do also if you want the colors back on the flower you can get that if you want proper colors on the lipstick that is also possible now I know the masking is not proper right here you can take the time to improve it later but for right now you can just paint this black and get the lip color there you go my friend this is crazy crazy matching now you can take the time to improve the masks or create better masks in the first place so that's how you can use logic and common sense to look at the big picture and fill in the missing Gap let us take a look at the before and after so this is the before and this is the after now if you're new to photoshop this might look a little challenging for you but please don't worry just focus on learning the concept the techniques and then when it comes to the approach of Photoshop this is how we should approach Photoshop we should not memorize the steps or memorize particular technique and stand by it of course it's okay to learn them and you should learn different ways of doing things in Photoshop but the approach should always be what you want and how you want want to achieve it and that's what makes you a unique artist I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other feature tips tricks or tutorials I'd like to take this moment to thank all of these nice and amazing people for supporting piximper effect on patreon and helping keep pics in perfect free for everybody forever thanks so much for all your support thank you for watching I'll see you in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creative thank you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 457,975

Keywords: color grading, copy colors, color correction, stylize image, photoshop tutorial, adobe, portrait retouching, portrait photography, make colors pop, curves, gradient map, adjustment layer, blend modes, sample colors, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: wv7OATjJPng

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2022