TK8 PLUG-IN for Photoshop: Troubleshooting An Image (TK8 Multi-Mask and TK8 Combo/Cx Panels)

welcome everyone it's tk friday the title of this tutorial is troubleshooting and image today i'll be working with the tk8 multi mask panel and the tk8 cx panel hello everyone and welcome to the joy of editing with dave kelly well it is tk friday again i always love tk fridays and i hope you do too hey if you've been enjoying these shows let me know in the comments section below i'd love to hear from you i'm working with a stock image today and i'm also providing a link for you to be able to download this image and follow along with me and the reason i chose this image i liked it but i thought it had some issues and i thought we would troubleshoot it and then use the tk8 multi-mask panel to correct it and today i'll be relying heavily upon the color grading tool who would think the color grading tool could be used for other purposes other than color grading and i'm finding you can really do a lot of great editing and correcting problem areas of your image with that color grading tool which i'll show you here very shortly well then let's get started okay then we're troubleshooting this image so the first thing that i'm noticing as i study this image is it seems a bit dark to me especially in all this foreground area here and it seems to have a bit of a blue cast on it i think i'll start out with a zone mask so let's come up here and click on the zone mask icon and let's find an area maybe somewhere right in here click ok and now let's just refine that mask a little bit maybe i'll just narrow it a little bit and let's lighten it up a good bit here just so we're selecting a lot of the area that we want and now let's output it to a color grading tool okay which is a curves adjustment but then we have this really cool interface to work with i'll start by giving you a tip i find that this mid-tones icon click it i always start with mid-tones because i find i get the most bang for the buck with this mid-tone adjustment especially when i'm doing these corrective type repairs we basically have two things we can do with this color grading tool we can lighten up the image or darken the image down now remember we're darkening through a mask which is very important it's really helping us and we can also alter the colors and this color wheel is really nice and it's this is a very intuitive adjustment here and it's a lot easier than working with the curves now everything we do here on this color grading tool is dealing with the curves but it makes it very simple to work with first thing i want to do is lighten up the entire image so i'm just going to take this slider and start to drag it to the right and you notice how i beautifully lighten up my image through this zone mask which is really nice now i think right there looks good here is the before and here's the after now let's work with the color remember i said it has like a blue cast to it now when we look at the color wheel we see we have blue here so to counteract the blue let's just slide up into the warmer tones up into these yellows and as we do you see how we can beautifully and easily remove that blue cast and just play with this to you think it looks about right i mean take your time but i think maybe right there here is the before and here is the after i also want to point out on this color grading tool you have this icon right here and basically when you click it it'll change this blend mode from normal to color now when it's in the color blend mode it's not if not working with the luminosity here it's just working with color so in this case it's not really helping but sometimes you don't want to alter the luminosity the lightness or darkness of the image you only want to affect a color so that's a good icon to click to change it from normal to color just to make a test okay then back to troubleshooting the next thing i'm noticing are these trees i'd like to change the tint of these trees a little bit the color on these trees they look just a little bit off to me so let's go ahead and let's close out the color grading tool let's get a let's do a color mask so let's click this icon here and let's select some of the green tones in this tree click ok and let's go ahead and lighten those up a good bit and i think that's covering everything if you need them lighter you can come up to this levels adjustment or curves adjustment and you could go ahead and lighten those up a little bit more if you'd like to and maybe i will i'll just lighten them up just a little bit and i can pull in the highlights in lighten that even more maybe somewhere right around in there and let's output this to another color grading tool the first thing i want to do is click on this mid-tones icon you'll notice that my properties icon is open i can go ahead and shut that or we can leave it open and you can see what's happening when i adjust this so whatever i do over here will be reflected over here maybe i'll leave that open just so you can see that but you can close it if you don't want to look at that i think i'll start by working on the color of the tree so i'm going to shift the mid tones more into the green tones and you see how they they turn nice and green and you just got to find the right spot where you think it looks right maybe somewhere around there now if i've decided i need to lighten them up i can lighten them up here if i need to or i could darken them down a little bit if i want um you know what i might darken them a little bit here is the before and here is the after but you see how that just takes care of that color there for me and again take your time and try to figure out the right tone you know you can make a more green if you want or less green there's a little bit of a yellow component in greens all the time so i think i think right there so here is the before and here is the after and you notice you see it in the water as well here's a little tip for you if you want to see what your mask looks like just come to your tk8 combo or cx panel in my case it's the cx panel and click this icon here and you could take a look at your mask now you can see other areas are being selected like this tree here some of the mountains back here so i think what i want to do is mask the mask here all right so let me go ahead and shut this off i'm just going to put this color grading layer into a group with a black mask and just click this left side of this icon and that gives you a black mask and you want to make sure you get a white paint brush i'm going to click on my white paint brush i'm going to get rid of this properties panel right now just by clicking on it and with my brush i'm going to have a nice big brush here at 100 opacity and flow and i'm going to use white paint and just simply paint that color where i want it to go like i'm going to miss the rocks but just on all these areas in here make sure you get it all painted okay here's the before and here's the after and i think i'm going to paint some of that in the water as well over in here mainly right in this area maybe some down in here okay so that's that masking mask and it's really quick and very effective and don't forget you're working with this color mask here so it's really protecting you but there's no need to add that green on this tree and up in here as well so masking the mask is a very good technique to use to do this before i move on let me double click this icon and we'll see our curves adjustment layer but you can see the changes that the color grading tool has made here and if i want to lighten these trees up which i think i do know i'm just going to take this luminosity slider and drag it a little bit to the right and just lighten those up a little bit more now that i have my masking and mask technique done i think i need a little more i'm going to close the properties again but here is the before and here's after and i like it i think it's good and if i felt it was too strong i can always come back and pull the opacity back on this group if i wanted to and one word of caution i'm going to open up the curves adjustment again do not touch the curves adjustments here do not alter them here only adjust them through this color grading tool if you have a layer that says color grading on it do not manually touch them you know like physically work with the curves adjustment always work within the tool that's very important or you'll screw things up on your adjustments and you don't want to do that are you ready for another tip and you're going to thank me for this one whenever you have a group and the group is open even if you're on the group layer itself and you go and you want to add another adjustment it's going to put it inside that group so my tip for you is to close that group before you add your next adjustment okay it's very important in case you don't really understand what i just said let me open this group back up again and see this group layer selected and if i just add any adjustment layer you would think it would go above the group but watch if i take like a levels adjustment and click it it goes inside that group and you don't want that right you want it to go above the group okay so let me go ahead and delete this out of here but you'll notice now if i close this group and add a like a levels adjustment now it goes above so kind of important i just wanted to point that out okay back to troubleshooting so let's go ahead and x out of this color grading tool now and the thing i want to do next is i think these mountains up here there's a little bit of a nice glow like an orange type glow on these mountains and you can't really see it very well so let's see if we can alter that let's go ahead this time and get i think a color mask works so let's click this icon here for color and let's pick some of the color up in here oh maybe right in this area here and click ok see that's orange stones and let's go ahead and lighten those up i'm going to drag this the whole way to the right and see what i get here yeah so it lightens those all up right there and i'm happy with that selection i think that's good and now let's output that again to a color grading layer which is a curves adjustment layer i'm going to go ahead and shut this properties panel down because we don't need to see it we know it's being altered but do you see how powerful this color grading tool is for making a lot of adjustments and right now i could probably say it's my go-to tool to use in the tk8 multi-mass panel and again i'm going to grab the mid-tones and i'm going to pull this into orange tones and look how these guys light up isn't that beautiful i mean right there is probably it if i needed them to go lighter i could pull this luminosity slider to the right and lighten them up just a little bit more i don't want to go too much there but here is the before and here is the after now it's affecting some of the tree down here and a little bit up here on this i don't know what you want to call this part of a mountain here let me see how that's really affecting that before and after i don't mind it so much on here but i don't like it down here so what i'm going to do is mask the mask so let's click the left side of this group icon and make sure we have white paint which i do i'm going to get a nice big brush soft edge brush and let's go ahead and at 100 i'm just gonna paint that in on these mountains over into here even down in the water here because it's reflecting down in the water which is beautiful i might go to 50 percent and just paint some of that on here as well i think that'll be good now here is the before and here's after just that easy the next thing i want to do is i don't know if you can see it but on this snow on the mountain here i see like a very slight blue castle and i like to get rid of that and to do that what i'm going to do is get a new color grading tool and i'm going to go ahead and choose mid tones again and then just simply drag the mid tones into warmer tones and you'll see right here as i'm dragging see that everything warming up now the entire image is warming up which is what i don't want but i just want that snow to get rid of that little bit of a blue cast and i think right there looks good but let me show you how i'll take care of removing it from the rest of the image i'll start by shutting off this color grading layer and for now i'm going to close the color grading tool and i will get a luminosity mask just a regular luminosity mask and maybe a like a lights 2 may do the job yeah that's looking pretty good and i'll modify it with a levels adjustment and what i think i'll do is lighten that up a little bit and darken the rest of the image down i'll move the shadow slider in move the highlight slider in to lighten things up even more narrow it down a little bit more something like right there lighten it up just a bit and then what i'm going to do is click on this icon right here because what it'll let me do is it'll let me paint through a selection it loads my mask as a selection turns my layer back on and gives me a black hide all layer mask to paint through and now i have a brush tool with white paint and all i need to do is just um paint and get rid of the color cast okay and right now my opacity is at 50 i'm going to paint at i think 50 i'll try the 50 first and i'm just gonna paint on the snow itself and when i do it'll just reduce that blue and add a little bit of warmth okay and i'll even get over here a little bit in this area up in here there's some snow over here a little bit down in here even in this water hit it a couple passes here's some snow up here i'll hit it a couple passes and i'm just painting through that selection every time i lift my brush i'm adding fifty percent fifty percent more of that paint but you get the idea that's it and i can even come down into the reflected snow in the water here and get rid of it as well okay but can you see that color grading tool it's so powerful i just really love it and just like that and i don't know if you'll really see this but here is the before and here's the after i know it's going to be hard to see but i can come back and click on this curves adjustment and now i can come back and click on my color grading tool and click on this midtone swatch again and you can see there it is right there and now if i wanted to add more warmth there as you can see i can add a lot more warmth or i can even darken it down if i want see it darkening down but i think i'm going to leave it right where it is but i just want to remove a little bit of the blue off there and i think right there here is the before and here is after and hopefully you can see that i'm going to let a little extra warmth on there just so you can really see it the next thing i like to do would be to darken the sky and give it a little bit more saturation a little bit more blue in that sky and to do that what i'm going to do is come to the cx panel and click this icon to select the sky loads it up as a selection now it's telling me this will discard your current selection do you want to continue yes i do so i'll click ok it now selects the sky as you can see up here hopefully you can see the marching ants and now i have to do is click on this plus on this color grading tool it'll add a new color grading tool with the sky selected so that's really cool let's click mid tones again and let me darken that sky a little bit by taking this luminosity slider and moving it to the left a little bit and now let's add a little bit more blue into that sky isn't that cool and maybe darken a little bit more so you can really see it but just like that here is the before and here's the after just that easy to fix we're almost finished and i hope you've stuck this out with me because you're learning a lot i'm sure i want to lighten this mountain area up a little bit here so to do that i'm going to get out of my color grading tool by clicking the x and let's get a zone mask i'm going to click right in here i just want to lighten this mountain up a little bit click ok and let's just narrow that down somewhat maybe like that and lighten it up like so i think that would be good right there and then i'm going to use a color grading tool again so let's output this to a color grading tool mid-tones let me lighten it up a little bit just a wee tiny bit here is the before and here is the after i'm gonna leave it there for now maybe just lighten it a little more so you can really see it okay right like that we could even warm it a little if we wanted to just add a little bit of warmth maybe just a tiny bit of warmth i think it'll look good i'm going to mask the mask by clicking the left side of this group icon gives me a black mask and i'll use a white brush with a hundred percent opacity a large brush uh with a very soft edge to it and again 100 paint i'm just gonna paint that adjustment on real quick and easy not going to spend too much time here make my brush a little smaller and just get in this area in here make sure i got this all painted down in here just up into here i think that's good enough i'm sure i missed the spot and if you uh click this icon right here you can actually see yeah so i missed over in here make my brush a little larger and just paint that in there but hey it's good enough for now you get the point but take your time but here is the before and here's after but just like that it just it just lightens that up i like to lighten up some of the darker areas in this tree in this area over in here a little bit now to do that i'm gonna go ahead and get out this color grading tool let's go back to a luminosity mask and i'm looking for something very dark so there's darks one darks two let's try darks three i need to go more let's go to darks four i really want to isolate that darks five i think darks five will do the trick maybe i'll just lighten that up a little bit and also darken a little bit more maybe right like they're pulling this highlights a little bit and lighten that up even more want to maintain texture and that is good let's output that to a curves adjustment but what i want to do and here's that problem see where that curve is inside there all we have to do is drag it up above there see i forget to do that all the time because anytime you have a group open it puts it in there okay so it's right there so here there's no adjustment on here but here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna change this blend mode from normal to screen now i can change it by clicking on this icon right here for screen or i could have just went here and went to screen either way it works but i like to use the actions so there it is here is the before and here's the after so it lightens these areas up but now i'm losing some contrast so i'm going to go ahead and give myself a little s curve on this curve just to add a little bit of contrast sometimes when you use a screen mode to lighten up dark areas it messes up your contrast but there's a before here's the before and here's the after okay and this is a technique that i learned off sean bagshaw so it's a really cool technique now i only want it on the tree in this area so i'm going to mask the mask so let's grab this icon here for a group and with a white brush and 100 opacity soft edge brush i'm just going to paint on my adjustment just to lighten up these areas and i'm going quicker here because i know this video is getting long and right over in here and over in here just like that and i think that's good so here is the before and here is the after one final adjustment i promise and that is to lighten up the mid-tones in the image but i don't want to affect the sky or the real light areas of the image i'm going to use a calculation to do that i'm going to use a regular luminosity mask i'm going to use mid-tones too because i want to do the mid-tones right but i want to do a calculation so click the calculation icon i'm going to subtract blue the blues from the sky so let me get out of here by clicking the x get a color mask click on the blue the sky here and click ok and there's the blue the sky and i can go ahead and lighten up that area let's lighten it up a good bit just like that and click equal and now we subtracted that blue sky out and now i want to subtract some of the highlights out so let's get another calculation minus and now let's go let's x out of here and go back to luminosity mass and i want to do a lights2 i'm going to subtract lights 2 out of this mask click equal and now i'm just going to get a simple brightness contrast adjustment layer and i made that mistake again you notice i put it inside that group not a problem just drag it up out of there and now let's simply give it a little bit of brightness overall brightness and maybe just a little smidge of overall contrast so here is the before and here is the after now my image started out looking like this and now it looks like this well there you go i hope you enjoyed this tutorial today there was a lot to it i know it was kind of on the long side but this is something you may want to go back and watch again but i hope you can see the power of the color grading tool in the new tk8 multi mask panel if you enjoyed this tutorial today please give it a like and share with your friends if you're not yet a subscriber to my channel please subscribe click that bell notification icon then every time i upload a new tutorial you'll be notified about it i want to thank each and every one of you for joining me today in the joy of editing with dave kelly i'll see you all right here next time but until then happy editing [Music] you

Channel: The Joy of Editing with Dave Kelly

Views: 3,486

Keywords: TK8, TK8 Plugin, TK8 Plugin for Photoshop, Photoshop, TK8 Multi Mask, TK8 Combo, TK8 Cx, Photography, Luminosity Masks, Color Masks, Photo Editing, Training, Layer Masks

Id: HU-s1wtfFg0

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021