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basic techniques: saturation and contrast
I haven't been online much during the past weeks because of health reasons, so I haven't had time to post this even though I had it ready a few weeks back... well, now here it is...
adventures in color correction: saturation
sometimes I wonder why people make things so complicated, I'm lazy, very lazy, so everything that's easy and time saving is very welcome in my world.
therefore I'm using easy reproductable techniques for basic screencap improvement (because then I can save them in actions and don't need to do the same few steps over and over again).
I've mentioned that I'm a lazy person, right? also a busy person, so I don't see the need to spend a lot of time for the basic stuff.
here's one of my techniques to get more saturation and contrast into screencaps.
it works on all high quality caps that lack of color and contrast (but are not miscolored) because I don't use picture specific techniques like curves etc for which you need to make the adjustments dependent on what the cap looks like.
the outcome is nice nontheless. and a good start to work on the actual coloring when you're finished with the basic improvement.
step 01: basics
open your screencap
I use auto-levels and auto-contrast (ctrl+alt+L and ctrl+shift+alt+L) because of my laziness
and it also gives some first easy improvements (yes, on this caps it's verrrry subtle *g*)
step 02: saturation, brightness, contrast
the ever popular: duplicate background layer and set it to Screen...
but with a slight twist, I increase the Saturation of the duplicated layer to around +45 (ctrl+U)
as much as I appreciate the brightness the Screen layer can give us we're losing a lot of details with this step.
and they won't come back with a simple Softlight layer, just saying...
so what I'm doing instead is, I duplicate the saturated Screen layer, use Filter - Other - Highpass at full force and set it on Multiply
I've mentioned the Highpass Filter before, it's normally used to increase contrast and for subtle sharpening (and we will use it later that way, too).
if you're screencap is too dark now (and it will be in probably 70% of all cases) duplicate the Screen layer again and move it on top of everything.
you can skip this step if your screencaps is very bright in the beginning anyway.
and the promised increasing of Contrast and Sharpness (it's what the pros are doing, seriously, it's a common technique, I've seen our AD doing it *g*)
duplicate the High Pass filtered layer and move it on top, set it to Softlight
at this point your layer palette looks like this
from bottom to top:
00: auto-contrasted and auto-levelled BG
01: saturated Screen layer
02: High Passed Multiply layer
(03: saturated Screen layer) only for dark caps
04: High Passed Soft Light layer
step 03: a little coloring
most screencaps lack a little of the warm tones (I could bore you now with my theories about encoder algorithms and how they never match skintones or NTSC which stands for Never The Same Color, at least for everyone who uses PAL ;P)
erm, but I won't I just use it as good enough explanation why I add a light peachy Multiply layer (#FBE8D8) *g*
and because I'm paranoid about losing too many details, I add the original Background layer on top again.
I desaturate it, lower the opacity to 50% and set it on Luminosity.
with this trick we'll get back a lot of details in the now too light areas.
and to make it lighter again (but with details now *g*) I add a light orange Softlight layer on 50% opacity
(#FBEBD8) the light orange makes it a bit warmer, too, which I like these days...
step 04: natural...
on top of everything I add the merge-copied cap (new layer, then ctrl+shift+alt+e)
I switch to the Channels palette and on each RGB Channel , i.e. Red, Green and Blue I'm using an Auto-Contrast (ctrl+shift+alt+L)
with this trick we're getting rid of the tannish look on the light parts, we're going for a natural as possible look for the basic improvement after all.
t i m e s a v e r
I've saved all these steps in two different actions
one for light caps and one for dark caps (with and without the extra screen layer)
that way you don't have to do it over and over again, as these steps pretty much work in the same way for all low saturated caps that lack of contrast.
and as I know how lazy I am...
you can also DL them from me instead of doing them yourself...
place them at C:\Programm Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Presets\Photoshop Actions\
saturation actions (right click and save as)
out of curiosity who is as lazy as myself, please comment if you're DLing them :)
step 05: sharpening
I'm doing my sharpening almost always this way
depending on the cap I skip a step sometimes or play around with the opacity, but normally it goes something like this
make a new layer on top of everything and merge-copy-paste it (ctrl+shift+alt+E)
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 20% on Multiply mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 20% on Screen mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 10% on Softlight mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 50% on Normal mode
you can recall the last used Filter with ctrl+f and fade it with ctrl+shift+f
if you're doing this after resizing/cropping it's in most cases enough... if you do it before you will probably have to sharpen again, and then fade the effect to your liking.
I like using this on a new Layer on top because I can always lower the opacity of the sharpened layer, too, if it gets too much for my taste.
the easy feedback system
Poll helpful?
as always: Have Fun!
credits:
screencaps from The X-Files DVD Screen Grab Archive
adventures in color correction: saturation
sometimes I wonder why people make things so complicated, I'm lazy, very lazy, so everything that's easy and time saving is very welcome in my world.
therefore I'm using easy reproductable techniques for basic screencap improvement (because then I can save them in actions and don't need to do the same few steps over and over again).
I've mentioned that I'm a lazy person, right? also a busy person, so I don't see the need to spend a lot of time for the basic stuff.
here's one of my techniques to get more saturation and contrast into screencaps.
it works on all high quality caps that lack of color and contrast (but are not miscolored) because I don't use picture specific techniques like curves etc for which you need to make the adjustments dependent on what the cap looks like.
the outcome is nice nontheless. and a good start to work on the actual coloring when you're finished with the basic improvement.
step 01: basics
open your screencap
I use auto-levels and auto-contrast (ctrl+alt+L and ctrl+shift+alt+L) because of my laziness
and it also gives some first easy improvements (yes, on this caps it's verrrry subtle *g*)
step 02: saturation, brightness, contrast
the ever popular: duplicate background layer and set it to Screen...
but with a slight twist, I increase the Saturation of the duplicated layer to around +45 (ctrl+U)
as much as I appreciate the brightness the Screen layer can give us we're losing a lot of details with this step.
and they won't come back with a simple Softlight layer, just saying...
so what I'm doing instead is, I duplicate the saturated Screen layer, use Filter - Other - Highpass at full force and set it on Multiply
I've mentioned the Highpass Filter before, it's normally used to increase contrast and for subtle sharpening (and we will use it later that way, too).
if you're screencap is too dark now (and it will be in probably 70% of all cases) duplicate the Screen layer again and move it on top of everything.
you can skip this step if your screencaps is very bright in the beginning anyway.
and the promised increasing of Contrast and Sharpness (it's what the pros are doing, seriously, it's a common technique, I've seen our AD doing it *g*)
duplicate the High Pass filtered layer and move it on top, set it to Softlight
at this point your layer palette looks like this
from bottom to top:
00: auto-contrasted and auto-levelled BG
01: saturated Screen layer
02: High Passed Multiply layer
(03: saturated Screen layer) only for dark caps
04: High Passed Soft Light layer
step 03: a little coloring
most screencaps lack a little of the warm tones (I could bore you now with my theories about encoder algorithms and how they never match skintones or NTSC which stands for Never The Same Color, at least for everyone who uses PAL ;P)
erm, but I won't I just use it as good enough explanation why I add a light peachy Multiply layer (#FBE8D8) *g*
and because I'm paranoid about losing too many details, I add the original Background layer on top again.
I desaturate it, lower the opacity to 50% and set it on Luminosity.
with this trick we'll get back a lot of details in the now too light areas.
and to make it lighter again (but with details now *g*) I add a light orange Softlight layer on 50% opacity
(#FBEBD8) the light orange makes it a bit warmer, too, which I like these days...
step 04: natural...
on top of everything I add the merge-copied cap (new layer, then ctrl+shift+alt+e)
I switch to the Channels palette and on each RGB Channel , i.e. Red, Green and Blue I'm using an Auto-Contrast (ctrl+shift+alt+L)
with this trick we're getting rid of the tannish look on the light parts, we're going for a natural as possible look for the basic improvement after all.
t i m e s a v e r
I've saved all these steps in two different actions
one for light caps and one for dark caps (with and without the extra screen layer)
that way you don't have to do it over and over again, as these steps pretty much work in the same way for all low saturated caps that lack of contrast.
and as I know how lazy I am...
you can also DL them from me instead of doing them yourself...
place them at C:\Programm Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Presets\Photoshop Actions\
saturation actions (right click and save as)
out of curiosity who is as lazy as myself, please comment if you're DLing them :)
step 05: sharpening
I'm doing my sharpening almost always this way
depending on the cap I skip a step sometimes or play around with the opacity, but normally it goes something like this
make a new layer on top of everything and merge-copy-paste it (ctrl+shift+alt+E)
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 20% on Multiply mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 20% on Screen mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 10% on Softlight mode
Use Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen
fade it to 50% on Normal mode
you can recall the last used Filter with ctrl+f and fade it with ctrl+shift+f
if you're doing this after resizing/cropping it's in most cases enough... if you do it before you will probably have to sharpen again, and then fade the effect to your liking.
I like using this on a new Layer on top because I can always lower the opacity of the sharpened layer, too, if it gets too much for my taste.
the easy feedback system
Poll helpful?
as always: Have Fun!
credits:
screencaps from The X-Files DVD Screen Grab Archive