Colour adjustments in Adobe Photoshop Class - 19 [Adobe Photoshop for Beginners]

Assalam.o.Alaikum

Welcome to Tech Learning 4U

Up until this point on the course,

we have mainly been looking at various tools

that enable us to use the program,

get hands on with image layers

and create various elements in the canvas area.

In Photoshop, there is a huge range of color adjustments

that can apply various effects

to your photos and graphics.

As you design in Photoshop,

you will often need to use color adjustments

in order to satisfy your creative decisions.

In this tutorial,

I'm going to discuss adjustments in Photoshop.

I'll be showing you where to find them, how to use them

and demonstrate a few common color adjustments.

By the end of this tutorial,

you will have a good understanding

of how Photoshop can apply various color effects

to your images.

So what exactly are adjustments in Photoshop?

Well in Photoshop, there are a wide range of adjustments

that enable us to tweak the appearance of color

on an image.

When we think about changing or tweaking the color

of an image layer,

we can come up to the main menu to the top,

click Image and come to Adjustments.

As you can see here, there are a wide range of adjustments

to choose from

and we'll be taking a look at these shortly.

So here in this document, we have two image examples.

In the last Blog, we learnt about smart objects.

Here we are going to look at how adjustments

are applied to a raster image layer

and a smart object layer.

So let's start on the left here

with this raster image layer.

Now before we perform any adjustment in Photoshop,

we must first have the layer selected in the Layers panel.

So I'm going to come over to the Layers panel

and I will need to select the bird raster layer

in the Layers panel, like so.

So with the layer selected, I can come up to Image,

scroll down and place my mouse over Adjustments

and reveal all the options.

So I'll start by clicking Brightness and Contrast.

Upon click, up will pop a menu box.

So this is the principle for any adjustments

you're about to apply to an image layer.

Every time we activate an adjustment,

we will always have a properties menu to toggle the effects.

So now it's a simple case of tweaking the handles.

I'll adjust the Brightness and the Contrast.

As we tweak the handles,

we can see the effect happening live in the canvas area.

So once I'm happy, I'll click OK.

And there we have changed the brightness and contrast

of the image layer.

Now if we are happy with that, great.

But if not, I can press command Z

to simply undo that effect.

So let's try another adjustment.

So I'll come up to Image, scroll down

and place my mouse over adjustments

to reveal all the options.

This time, I'll select Hue/Saturation.

Upon click, here I have the Hue/Saturation menu.

Here I can toggle the Hue, Saturation

and Lightness, like so.

I'll click OK,

and there I have drastically changed the colors in my image.

But I don't want that so I'll press command Z to undo.

Back up to Adjustments,

I can apply Black & White.

Here I can toggle all the color channels

to tweak the Black & White effect.

If I want that effect applied to the image, I'll click OK.

But on this occasion, I don't so I'll just click Cancel.

Back up to Adjustments, I can apply and Invert adjustment.

I'll undo that.

Back up to Adjustments, I can apply Threshold.

This one is interesting

to get a high contrast of black and white.

I'll cancel that.

Back up to Adjustments, I can apply a Gradient Map.

I can select from various gradients or toggle my own.

We can get some interesting effects there.

Though again, I'll cancel.

Next, I'll choose Selective Color.

Now this one is interesting because you can toggle

the properties of specific color ranges.

For example, I'll choose the color Red

and attempt to toggle the color of the red dots

in the image.

Notice as I toggle the Cyan, Magenta,

Yellow and Black handles,

only the red colors in the image will change.

Pretty cool, right?

So I'll cancel that.

Lastly, I'll come up and choose Replace Color.

Now this one is particularly interesting

as you can isolate particular colors within the image

and just tweak them.

For example, I'll choose the blue background

with a color picker

and I'll change the Hue, Saturation and Lightness

of just that color in the image.

Pretty cool.

And I'll click Cancel to go back to my original image.

Now an interesting tip to keep in mind

when using adjustments,

let's say you only want to apply an adjustment effect

to a particular part of your image.

Well here you can use the selection tools

to isolate part of an image layer

and then apply an adjustment to just that.

For example, I'll come over

and select the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the menu.

I'll draw a selection around the dot texture on the wings.

So now I have an active selection with the dashed line.

My layer still selected in the Layers panel,

I'll come up to Image, Adjustments

and choose Hue/Saturation.

Notice when I tweak the Hue, Saturation handles,

the adjustment is only being applied to the selection.

I'll press OK and then command D to deselect the selection.

Easy.

So that's just a taster of how you can use adjustments

to change and tweak color of an image layer.

Now there are a lot more adjustments to choose from.

I suggest you take some time to explore these for yourself

and see how they work for you.

Now it's important to mention at this stage

that using adjustments like this

on image layers is destructive.

What I mean by destructive

is that once you apply an adjustment like this

to a layer,

you will essentially change the pixels in the raster image.

If you make a change in any way to a raster image

using the adjustments like this and save your document,

when you open your document back up

you will no longer be able to go back to the original image.

So you must use adjustments in this way very cautiously.

I highly recommend you only use adjustments like this

when you know you are fully happy with the outcome.

Now if we move across to the right

and take a look at the smart object layer,

let's now try and apply the same adjustments to this layer.

So I'll come over to the Layers panel

and select the bird smart object layer.

Now if I double click on the smart object thumbnail,

we will open a new tab

and we can see that this smart object contains three layers.

A bird layer, a shadow layer and a blue base layer.

So I'll close the tab

and come back into the worksheet document.

So with the smart object layer selected,

I'll come up to Image, Adjustments.

But now we can see something quite different.

All of the adjustments are grayed out.

This is Photoshop telling us

we cannot use any of the color adjustments on this layer.

So on a smart object layer,

we cannot use any of the adjustments.

We can only use these adjustments on raster image layers.

So why is this?

Well as mentioned earlier,

these adjustments are destructive.

They work to change the pixels on raster images.

As this is a smart object layer,

this layer is linked to image data elsewhere

so the effect will not be able to take hold.

So now you must be wondering,

well how can we possibly apply adjustments

to a smart object layer?

Well this takes us on to the next video.

In this Blog, we learnt how we could apply

various color adjustments to raster image layers.

In Photoshop, there is a feature that allows us

to apply color effects to our layers

in a non-destructive way.

These are called Adjustment Layers.

In the next Blog, we are going to learn

about Adjustment Layers and see how they work.

See you in the next Blog.