Photoshop Compositing Tutorial 2 - Color Matching/Correction

Hey guys, this is Macazono. One, today we're going to be continuing our Photoshop compositing tutorials and learn how to use color correction to correct the errors in this photo blend we did in the last tutorial. So let's get started.

First of all, we're going to want to correct the stones and stuff. This looks a bit too orange over here. So to do this, we're going to be using the curves adjustment layer. Now, we could do this using the adjustments layer from over here, but this actually is destructive, which means it would actually change the pixels, and we don't want that. So instead, we're going to do non-destructive editing and use the adjustment layers from down here.

So we're going to add a curves adjustment, and we'll start doing it. The first thing first, I think it looks a little bit too dark, so we'll brighten this up a bit. Now, the problem is, as you can see, it's affecting everything. Now, normally you would do this by only using the image adjustment part over there. But what we're going to do is, because we want it to be non-destructive, we're going to add a clipping mask.

So to do this, we're going to right-click and click create clipping mask. Now, this is going to do is going to clip this curves adjustment layer to only the selected part of this layer. So if there's anything under here, like the sky here, it's not going to be affected. So as you can see, if I just change this a bit, it's only affecting our one part.

So first, you want to just get the brightness pretty good level, and then we're going to start adjusting each layer by itself. So I'm going to start with a red layer. You want to go to the channels part; it's not, it should be next to layers. If it's not, you can go to windows and channel. Click the red channel. Now, what this will do is it'll only show the red part of the image. This will let us adjust the red on a much more accurate level.

So I'm going to turn the red down a little bit. As you can see, it's blending pretty nicely. Then we're going to go to the green—let's change this to green—and that'll already look pretty good. Now, the blue is probably going to be a bit different; gonna turn it up quite a bit. And if we go back to RGB, which is all three, you can see it looks a bit better. Maybe a little bit too much blue; we can always change that, and I think that looks pretty good.

Now there's one more thing. I think the bottom here looks too much too blue, so we're going to do is, I'm going to add another curves adjustment layer. And again, I'm going to right-click create clipping mask. In this one, I'm going to desaturate it or remove some of the blue from the image. This is going to look a bit weird in the water here, but it's all right because this is a non-destructive layer. We can actually change—we can turn it on and off.

We can also use the clipping mask feature, like we did on this part, and actually remove some of the blue from only a certain part of the image. So I'm gonna use the gradient tool, and we're gonna use a linear gradient, and we're gonna just kind of drag it down. And as you can see here, it has desaturated or taken out all the blue from this area.

So we get a nice kind of brownish-orange-green color tones over here, and we get the nice blue for the beach. You can always just do that again, just make it a little bit better, and you can always take the eraser tool and just go in there and select certain areas. So this looks pretty good. I think I'm just gonna add one more thing.

Well, but there is one more thing. I'm gonna add a brightness and contrast layer. I'm gonna right-click again, create clipping mask, and I'm just gonna brighten everything up a bit, maybe add some contrast. I'm gonna use the clipping mask feature and just kind of erase around here, maybe I'm gonna erase around here and just make it kind of darker, so it fits in more with the sky.

So I think it looks pretty good. Maybe you can always just change the blues a bit more; just make it pop a little bit more. But all together, I think that's pretty good. In the next tutorial, we're gonna work on—in the next tutorial, we're going to talk more about clipping masks and how to actually paint over certain areas and just kind of, you know, make this sky blend in a little bit more, make it look more like a horizon.

So thanks for watching, make its 101, subscribe, and goodbye.