Lessons

Lesson Info

Global Color Correction

I'm in photo shop now and I can tell you that this new dark interface thing is ridiculous I don't know how many people agree with me but I thought we got over light letters on a dark background when we got rid of dos okay, so I see this dark interface and I know it's like supposed to be the sexiest thing in the world with the first thing I'm going to do is change that uh and you know just go to the interface setting here and you know anything lighter than that does lana's I get black letters on a on a lighter background I'm happy okay? So we'll use this setting um and then I wanted to talk a little bit about just setting up the uh uh the preferences for your work space for if osha I have a few things that I recommend and if you're right handed the first thing I would do is move the tool panel over to the right side and I believe literally that if you are left handed you should be working with the interface flop so that all the tools are on the left side of the panels on left side I rar...

ely see anyone do that though if they're left handed I see them working this way in which case you're always going to be kind of crossing over the image to go get your tools and coming you know and I like to keep my hand over here to select tools so it's away from the image and then just bring the tools in so just a consideration um and you know, color is something that I'm usually picking out of the image uh and I I'm more likely to kind of access it momentarily swatches our designers tool more or less um so my adjustments I have I have no use for stiles just close that and most important panel in all of photo shop is the info panel which is never open it seems like so I selected make sure it's open uh, you know, once once you get all your tools and everything set up the way you want, you can save that arrangement and it will be, you know, we'll say that works based already did this on choose my, you know, puts the tools where I want him. I've got the info panel where I want it and uh now, first thing I want to do is kind of evaluate the color, so we're gonna use this image since three this one really isn't going to require a lot of ah retouching but I I am going to look and it seems now looking at the numbers up here, you know, I see the values are very, very light and, um it looks like we may be a little lows when when the science value is so low it generally means the skin is a little saturated these numbers appearance says three percent sayin thirteen percent magenta fifteen percent yellow zero black not as pretty decent ratio uh just maybe the science is just a little low it's not bad, but I think the skin tone is a little saturated now on the monitor here in the studio for those in the internet this monitor is got some funky calibration so she's literally kind of glowing on my computer monitor that I'm look at she doesn't look so bad but over here she looks like a cartoon so you guys just going you just know that this monitor for the studio audience is not calibrated um and the what we're seeing here is because of the feed going them to the internet it's calibrated differently. So yes, so if you're looking at your screen awesome right folks, we're seeing at home should be what do you see on your own today should be a lot closer what I certainly and s o this doesn't look that bad in the numbers also aren't you know these are not bad that's a good ratio for her skin, which is a little pinker uh we can get the magenta yellow a little closer together like this also when these numbers are so low because it's so light so pale uh the magenta yellow values tend to be a little closer together and they still look okay um you you do have to kind of roam around and get some sense of how the numbers are fluctuating because if we just take a highlight off her face, you know there's a sort of a speculator right there in the middle of her forehead and that value is really pale and maybe to neutral, you know, it's hard to get a read on the color so some mid tone value is good for evaluating the skin numbers and I'm I'm seeing yellow actually a little high in some places here or or magenta is a little high you're going to see some variation that's why I say it's like these guidelines of the cheeks they're going to be redder. So you know the fact that this is twenty four magenta and twenty three yellow not that big a deal for cheeks which are naturally going to be ready to see you have to kind of play the curse around the whole face just to decide what what's happening with the color so I would say we don't have terrible color with this um we could just de saturated slightly maybe, uh but I would I would say are color balance on our shoot was actually pretty good ideally, this is what you should see shouldn't you know if you have done your great card and you've done your great balance like I did in light room and applied that you shouldn't have any color problems but of sometimes to kind of idealized the skin color way do have to adjust it just a little bit um and you know, we could just see if just d saturating this slightly uh and I will do reds here just slightly if that so I'm I'm kind of you know, I'm looking and I'm also looking at the numbers so I'm just moving the saturation a little bit and trying to decide if this is going in the right direction so looking over here on the same like a numbers again I've got it was it three now it's at four so I've raised that sign value just a little bit the other two numbers really haven't changed, so I'm just kind of introducing that the sort of science pollution is what's d saturating that skin value so it doesn't look quite so you know cartoony again ignore this monitor uh I could maybe go just a little bit more very subtle kind of thing and in most places across the board it's just one percent kind of change, so maybe just all right and then the real test is toddling it on and off and I'm seeing ah that that one little move the fifteen percent less saturation is actually on my monitor seems to make s and look a little nicer so um it's sort of like it's a combination of looking and evaluating and knowing what you're trying to achieve with the numbers and I knew that really just that saturation move is going to change how that that sayin played I didn't have toe work a curve now let's go back and open up one of the other images and then I think we're gonna take a break so it's actually will work on this one edit that photo shop cia six and looking at the numbers here um I think I would like a little more yellow it's it's it's reading with this kind of density ok, so my sayin is really half uh I'd sort of like to get more yellow in here um and maybe bring the side dance I am down just a little bit I'm gonna I want more yellow um or at least a higher yellow percentage relative tio magenta so I can either make the magenta number go down or the yellow number go up um so let's see, I'm goingto I'll put a curve on at this time and um let's make the magenta number go down and bright in the skin a little bit so I will find some area sort of mid tone where does that live very important whenever you're using the sample tool which you get by default when you open a curve so you have open a curve I clicked on the little finger so I can place a point on the curve and I have this kind of sample tool appear that it says sample size so you never want to be on point sample because that's one pixel we need to get an average to get a sense of the rial color of the skin so five by five or mostly eleven by eleven for images of this size and want to be a least eleven by eleven so I select that and now I'm going to get a little more accurate fix on the color and yeah it's still I I still think we need to get a little more ratio a little more yellow to magenta so I'm going to add a little green so I found a point it's placed a point I'm on the green channel and I'm just going toe nudge the point up and we'll find a color on her forehead here so I've got nine twenty five twenty seven I mean a nudge this up and watched the numbers change so the magenta is going to go down twenty four yellows twenty eight twenty four twenty three twenty eight twenty two, twenty nine um now I think that's done what I wanted it to do um yeah get and send for a shortcut you just using up and down I'm just using their keys when I'm when I'm making these final justice are color wasn't radically off on this because we were controlling the light did the great balance and all that so I'm really we're really doing very subtle color moves okay? So I'm just nudging that green channel up just a little bit brightening the skin just slightly but it's really changing that that that subtle ratio of yellow to magenta which is so critical for what we consider an ideal skin color azaz I talk about on and off you can see even on our badly calibrated monitor it's it's helping uh and on mine it zits it's dramatic and it really needs to take that that that kind of magenta pink curse off so those are our that's our kind of basic color is this the rest of our issues on with these images they're going to be re touching issues so we're gonna take a break after your questions. So just curious do you usually just use the eyedropper and hover over or do you in your workflow set points with the eyedropper so that you're keeping an eye on it is there that I would set black points and white points okay using set point so on I did promise you I'd show you I don't suspect that we have a problem with these images but we don't have a white point in this image but let's find the darkest point in the image so I'm going to turn off the curve for a moment and I'm going to make a threshold adjustment layer so I click on threshold adjustment and you get this code lif black and white image okay, so the blackest thing and the image will be a zay move this slider over and make the image more you know that I've essentially moving the split point between black and white for this adjustment the last thing to wink out before it turns all white will be the darkest thing which sure enough is like being a little shadow right here right so I'm going to go ahead and get him pick up color sampler and put the point there and then throw away the adjustment so I throw away that threshold adjustment now have placed point in the darkest shadow and it's a little dark let's see what it ended up with after my adjustment I haven't really changed that much uh but let's let's go ahead and and do that so it right now it says nine five three it's a little on the red side so it's interesting that moving we've seen it needed to move the green let's see what happens when I actually neutralize uh the point so and we also want to be a fifteen so let's let's first let's kind of get the highest number to be at fifteen so I'm moving all three channels until I went from nine to fifteen here okay then I'm going to go over to my green channel and will nudge that up until it says fifteen and then will nudge the blew up until it says fifteen okay I'm now just checking my numbers they haven't changed much on the skin tone which is good so it's it's you know it's a subtle move that has taken some of the darkness off of it a little bit um and and now I should be able to see into those shadows even in a print you know they're not going to go pitch black but that at one point is like a crowd this way back there okay? So that's how you identify the lightest and darkest points he is that that threshold I can't make her teeth white that's not a good you know if you force that to be white it'll look weird because teeth aren't white so you can't put a white point on teeth and there's no other highlight in here she's not wearing white clothing so I really can't set up a white point I just work on overall brightness to you know bye bye feel more than anything else so ok so we're kind of color corrected on on both of these this one is so pale with probably the black points going to be your eye and, uh you know, weaken probably tolerate higher numbers for those things yeah, because I want this to be real pale maybe would you beautifully to show us that again maybe on that one had to set the third point is I think that was and potentially the white point that was new york a lot of people it's let's do that let's make a threshold adjustment and, uh I'm gonna turn off well actually who situations not affecting the black points I'll leave it there as I move the slider to the left I'm finding, you know, the darkest thing which seems to be on that side of the face right in the hair right there so I click with my example a tool over that black thing so, uh wait right in here there's you know that sample point on top of the darkest thing in that threshold thing? And if I was going to try and find the white point, I move the slider to the right and, you know again can't make the teeth white, but certainly this background is already white you can see that's clipped a white all there in the background so, uh we have already found our white point there obviously in that image uh but this one it was more more important maybe to set that black point so once you're done visualizing the lightest and darkest things you can throw that threshold adjustment away and now we're back and we can see that our black point is pretty elevated forty three thirty three twenty nine uh and because of the nature of this shot it's a very high key shot this would be the one time where I'd say you know it's okay not to force that black point to be black because it's in her red hair you know and it's not that dark I don't with this type of shot and I don't mind it being so kind of elevated so I'm going I my tendency here would just be to leave it alone okay one more question and so soon get a break here but I'm so sorry but the big point that I'm getting with the eyedropper tools is that you're not relying entirely on the visual monitor for the values of the skin and by using the sample points setting your block conscientiously to the darkest part of the tongue manipulating the midpoint stowe in the way that you're wanting to buy balancing out the rgb and setting the white points by the the threshold method that you just demonstrated that's your that's your first passed roache tio ok thank you that's that's my first passed you had a question in official values which part of the face should have perfect in your uh um it depends on the lazy rodent perfect there is no perfect skin tone area where I could say always sample the forehead because it's going to be different you're you and it's also it's difficult sometimes with makeup and she was wearing a lot of makeup uh, which oftentimes gives the skin color on the face something slightly different than the neck in the shoulders because we're generally are not applying makeup to the neck and neck in the shoulder so there may be a difference here and you know you can't unless is it's radically different to be a bad idea to try to force one skin don't look like the other you know natural variation is important but you know what I do is I move the cursor around and look at how these numbers dance around on different parts of the face so you know, she has been looking at this now I'm thinking, you know, maybe she's still a little on the red side uh so I I might want to you know, get a little more yellow into this so I would use a curb we just decide traitor skin tone a little bit um but you know, I'm just sort of moving the cursor around and looking at how the numbers change and seeing if I have a concerted consistent ratio because they're going to go up and down, you know, but in most places here's the yellow is a little bit higher and it's kind of it's within range. So it's not far enough away that I, you know, some areas seemed to be redder than others. But, you know, that's, sort of natural variation on this face. So not not worth it to really hammering down.