Color adjustment tools

[DanK]

I couldn't resist coming back to respond to the short interchange about Lightroom's point color option. I'll describe my understanding of the three related Adobe color modification tools. If I have any of this wrong, please let me know.

1. Point color. This is basically a more precise and powerful alternative to the color sliders in the color mixer panel. The function of both is to select a color range and apply adjustments (hue, saturation, luminance) to that range alone. Point color is more powerful in that you can specify the color more accurately and control the range affected (overall, or specifically for saturation, hue, and luminance). However, in either case, it is designed to affect an isolated color range.

2. Calibration (LR and ACR). This is the opposite end of the spectrum. When you modify the primaries, you affect all colors that have that primary in them. I think this may be one reason some people use this early in the process, while still doing global adjustments.

3. Photoshop's selective color: this tool is in some sense in between the others. The core function is the same as calibration: you make changes to primaries. However, you do this only to broad ranges, e.g., "reds" and "yellows". The other difference is that this affords all the possibilities you get with any adjustment layer, e.g., masking and modifications of opacity.

Anything wrong in this description?

Both point color and selective color are new to me. I've used the color mixer sliders for a long time and calibration for a while, but I only started using the others very recently and still have a lot to learn to understand when best to use each.

[Round Tuit]

I have just started to use point colour thanks to you. It will undoubtedly become my go to tool to manipulate localized colours ranges. Calibration seems like a different way to adjust the white balance. We already have the white balance tool in Lightroom which I find easy to use. For more difficult cases, I use a curve layer on the individual channels. This latter one can also be combined with masking for localized control. I tried using selective colour in Photoshop but I have not been able to master it. Sometimes it works very well and at other times it does not seem to do anything. I have not figured out what I am doing wrong.

[DanK]

If I am right, calibration and selective color are doing similar things, just on different color ranges. Perhaps one can use it for WB, but that's not what I have seen online or done. What I have seen, and what I have been trying to teach myself, is that it can be used to increase color contrasts. However, more often than not, I can't yet visualize what an effect a given adjustment will have, or even whether it will have much of an effect at all. I play with all of the primaries to see whether any one has an impact on a given image worth exploring/

[Round Tuit]

I think that for now I will concentrate on mastering point colour before tackling a new tool. I am more comfortable when I can anticipate what a tool will do rather than move sliders and see what happens.

[DanK]

I think that for now I will concentrate on mastering point colour before tackling a new tool. I am more comfortable when I can anticipate what a tool will do rather than move sliders and see what happens.

I entirely agree. I'm doing the "try the sliders and see" approach less as an editing technique than as an instructional technique. I have very little understanding of how the changes in a primary affect color mixes distant from that primary. The LR calibration tool may be more useful in this respect because it's unrestricted: a change in any primary affects all colors in the image that have any appreciable amount of that primary. However, I think it's likely that even with a lot of experience, some of the effects will be unanticipated.

However, that said, I do it with a goal in mind. For example, in one case (I will have to see whether I can dig this example up), I looked at the dominant colors in a landscape that was colorful but lacked pop and started with the question, "how can I generate more color contrast between color A and color B without making the image look unnatural?" Then I took my best guess, which was generally wrong, and then moved to the 'ok, if that's the wrong idea, what could one do' stage. In some cases, nothing really helped and I moved on to other options. Sometimes, however, it can make a big difference.

I searched in vain for the video that introduced me to this (using selective color), which showed some very impressive results. however, there are lots of videos demonstrating it.

Dan

[DanK]

I found one of them.

This was for self-instruction, not for presentation, and the two shots are from partway through the editing process. The effects are subtle, which is what I wanted for teaching myself. For displaying the tools, perhaps a more exaggerated example would be more helpful.

First, before the use of selective color:



Note the rather drab green grass and the lack of color contrast in the trees, particularly the top right triangle of trees mostly without leaves.

Here is with selective color adjustments. Again, more for self-instruction. The effects are subtle. Note the slightly more vibrant green the grass, the slight increase in color contrast in the trees with leaves remaining, and the larger increase in the trees top without leaves.



To do this I changed the primaries under three colors. For reds, I move cyan toward red, magenta away from green and toward magenta, and yellow away from blue toward yellow (warming). For greens, I moved magenta toward green and yellow toward yellow. For blue, I moved magenta toward green and cyan toward cyan.

Some of this I anticipated, like the warming. Others I discovered by trial and error.