Lessons

Lesson Info

Putting All Together: Applying Toning and Color Effects

so color grading. We already talked about adding shadows to the highlights in mid tones and and, uh, color to the shadows or highlights amid tones. But I dio color grading a lot specifically. So here's my call out to you guys. Austin. We photographers go with whatever color was there because that's the color. She came in a blue shirt. She came in red shoes. The background was green, and I think that is a huge, huge missed opportunity, often because colors one of the most powerful things that we can weaken use visually for storytelling, for mood and all of that. So it's sometimes I want to selectively target areas of the photo to make the colors be what I want them to be. So even though color grading to me is more of an overall mood, I color grade specific things. So just means I'm changing the color in this photo. I lead with intent. So what is the intent of this photo? This was actually a high school senior portrait redo because she got her photos and hated them. So this was the year ...

after her radio so she could have something a little bit more fantasy and fairy tale. So what we did is we took her out on location, and I've got the when I planet for the cherry blossoms. So the idea is pink, pink, pink, pink, dreamy fairy tale, all of that romantic stuff. However, in this photo, your eye goes to the brightest area, which is the address. Okay, I'm looking at her. It goes to areas of contrast, but I feel like kinda down here. Maybe. And then it's also, in this case going to go to differences. I'm looking right at that green. I don't know about you guys like, I cannot stop looking at that green. I think the pictures pretty, but it's not a successful because of the colors. Well, guess what? I can change them. So we are going to change them, and we're going to use one other tool we haven't seen. And then several tools that we have. All right, So for this photo, I am going to go into hue saturation, so I'm actually gonna grab 1/2 1 cookie and go into hue saturation. Let's say that I wanted to change the color of the green. This is the idea of why people shoot on green screen because green is not gonna be other places in the photos. It's actually pretty easy to change. However, we often get tricked because Greengrass isn't green. It's yellow most of the time. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab I know. I want to shift. Not the whole heat Watch. If I shift the whole Hugh everything in the photos changing, I don't want to do that. I specifically want to change the green of the grass. So what Attack. Take this little finger mover thing. I don't know. What is that thing? I'm gonna click on it and it allows me to select the grasses. Tell me what This colorless? That's this bracelet saying. So I'm gonna click on it, and it actually tells me that these grasses or yellow which I knew because that's just tends to be what it is. So it's telling me. Okay, now what I can dio is I can shift the hue off. The grass is so now finish. If the hue so I could I could make it like, ooh, like a pretty purple. And so I'm starting to control the color a little bit more. I'm giving it a purpose. The problem that I run into is her face and her hair, because the problem is skin tones are reds, yellows and oranges. So when I shifted the hue of her skin tone, it messed it up. And so I can go for sure. Go in and selectively paint this off because I've got an adjustment layer with a layer mask so I could go in. I could paint it off of her face, but it's a whole different story with hair, because the hair like I'm gonna have to go in. And it's way too much work. So there's actually a control here in hue saturation. What we're gonna dio is it's kind of the blended thing. Remember, you can you can shift what it's affecting. Okay, think that but not shadows. Highlights is actually colors. That's what this is right here. So what I'm going to tell it is I'm going to tell it. You know the shift in Hue I just did on Lee Effect. Just the grass don't affect in terrific. And so I could get real specific on because the grass is not the same color vers or her hair, I can get more specific. So what I'm going to do so I can see what I'm doing is I'm gonna pop up saturation because when I pop it up, then I can see where it's affected the gun and subtle like I can't quite see it. So what I'm looking at is I've got reds on the left and greens on the right hand side. And so I know probably the grasses on was looking at were more in this yellow to green, not in the yellow to red, to yellow. To red is probably where her hair and her skin tone is. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna drag this inward to say, don't include the reds and yellows of the skin and hair. So now when I dragged this in slowly, you'll see it slowly leaving her face slowly. Oh, and it's gone. So what I did is I restricted where this huge change happened. It's the same ideas that blend. If where I restricted off of the highlights were off of the shadows and then these these two little sliders again, same thing it's It's the area over which it blends in. So I got it off of her hair easily. And then obviously this is crazy. So I'm gonna I did it so I could see the saturation. Like I could actually see what I was doing. Let's bring it back down to normal somewhere around there. Now I can shifted. Yeah, like I like that. So what I did as they took control of color in the scene. What's really nice is you can do this with the color of address or the color of shoes or the color of a background or whatever you want. I think this far too often people kind of just kind of let things happen. Um, so I like that. But I want fantasy and fairy tale like I want. I want even more so I could go back in and I could start using Grady it maps. Or I could use the solid color layers with blended for I could use selective color. I gave you 50 ways to do it. Kind of depends on what you want. I'm going to try my selective color because that's the one I find easiest. So when I grab selective color and I'm gonna go into the neutrals in the blacks. I never know, like sometimes the blacks are such small details like the blacks might just be on the trees, so I might actually have to do neutrals to get the undertones I o experiment. So let's try that. Let's see if I add a little bit of blue. So notice here's where it's adding it okay in the black. So it's adding a little bit of blue is gonna give me a little bit of purplish. Okay. Like it, um, I can always paint that effect off of the hair. This is why what you were saying before is I liked If I'm doing massive color changes, I do. I'll do a couple different layers because then if I remove the effect, it's like this one was for the shadows. This one was for the highlights instead of the two of them being together. So I could do that one for the shadows and I could come in and I could remove it off of the hair, just like underneath the hair. Okay. And then I could come in and do another one for the highlights. But in this case, I do what I always do not have the yellow because that's like my go to let's add the yellow, all right. And the whole picture, I think, needs a little more contrast. So I'm gonna try my black and white on soft light to give it a little bit of pop. So let's see how it looks black and white softly. I think I'll need to tweak all of these, but he's back off a little bit. And then let's get rid of a little bit of that blue in the shadows so that here's the direction we're moving. And it's just like it's so much more romantic and so much more dreamy than this green kind of flat picture. So color grading is taking control of color for mood, but also of the subjects, as well as your contrast as well as where it's kind of all of it together. So color grading isn't just color, so I'm going to start with this one, open for how it actually toned this, um, looking at it, I think what I would do is I want her to be deathly pale like super pill, someone to grab my half moon cookie, and we go to hue saturation, and I'm gonna de saturate the reds and yellows in her skin. I'm gonna make it a little paler so I can grab a little eye dropper thing. And I'm just gonna pull out some of the color, try some of the yellows. I'm just de saturating a little bit. But when I do so she gets a little flat. It just looks a little bit gray. So I'm gonna just breaking up my curves just a bit. Okay? In this case of actually grabbing levels, same thing. So I paled out her skin a little bit, brightened up the photo. Um, I like the blues that are in the shadows. I'm gonna try selective color and to see if I wanted a little more scion. Somebody grab those blacks and just add a little sigh into it. Yeah, like that. Good. And that I'm gonna maybe shift those blues to be a little more san, See? Okay, that looks good. It's actually got pretty good natural vignette to it. I might just add a little bit of color toning to the highlights what I can actually do to just get her skin as I do the blend if thing Because then I can control exactly where it is. It's not as easy to control it on and off the skin when you do selective color because it is kind of picking highlights. Well, what One of the highlights s I'm gonna create that new layer. I'm gonna add some yellow to her skin, so I'm actually gonna fill a layer with yellow. Okay, change the blend mode to softly. Okay. Uhm, I'm going to right click someone right click for my blending options, and I want it off of the shadows. I just want that yellow somewhere on her face here, alter option to split it, give it a little bit softer of a blend. Maybe here. Okay? And then, obviously that's too strong. Um, so I'm gonna back off of it. And what's nice is if I wanted to be a different yellow. I can always come in and change the color anything I want, or I can do hue saturation clips to it because then I could just drag it and make it like there. So I like. So it probably toned something like that and I might bring out a little bit more detail on the feathers cause I'm losing it right there. So I might do that. What I would probably do is open up another layer from light room because I'm working with the raw file so I can go in and I can grab that layer. I can bring out the detail and open it up and then just mascot in selectively for her. I liked that teal in the beginning for the first girl. Um, here. I love this. Like, I'm fine with that kind of tone ings. I like it better when she had the highlight. Here it's a little bit more, Phil. So what I had in light room was fine. We toned her. Okay. Okay, so I'll kind of end on this one for this. What I did in in light room looks good, but what I could do is I could bring it into photo shop, and I would probably try some Grady. It maps like I try to see what I can get to warm it up all over. So let's try ingredient map. But when I do so, I'm gonna decrease the opacity. And let's see what kind of like warm tones I can get? Yeah, like something in here. I'm getting something. Notice that CPS I'm clicking around. And then I could, of course, change it too softly so that it interacts a little bit better. Maybe something here. Okay? And I'm gonna lighten up the photo a little dark, some liken a little bit warmer, might dark and down the edges. But that's like roughly the idea of what I would do If I didn't like that. Then I would go back in at the end. And I can always go back to the original tools if I really liked what I did in. If I really, really liked what I had done in ah, light room is I can come back in here and warm it up are not know why this one's crazy. OK, but right. So that's the gist of it.