Tutorial: Colour Correction
1 - 2 step colour correcting tutorial, written for Paintshop Pro 8, but translatable to Photoshop. Uses Histogram Adjustment and Color Balance. Image Heavyish.
I ran across this tutorial by masked_grafics not long ago and found a wonderful technique for colour correction on it, using levels. However, I favour PSP8 when I do graphics and the levels function in Paintshop does not appear in the same way as in Photoshop. So, I wondered if I could approximate it somehow and searched through the functions for something similar. This is what I found.
Step One: Find a Cap
This technique works best on screencaps, but will probably work on other images too. I will warn that it will not work for all images. If the colour saturation is due to a problem that happened during the capping, this should help. If the image was made to be saturated (i.e purposely filmed in very heavy blue light), however, you may find this won't be much good to you. Give it a try, however, if it doesn't help you're no worse off.
Find a cap that is heavy with one colour. I've chosen this one from Kate & Leopold, which is very red/brown.
Step Two: Histograms
Note: If you are using Photoshop, substitute Levels for the Histogram fuction. It should work pretty much in the same manner.
Do not do anything to your image. Do not lighten it. Lightening happens during the process and this works best on darker images anyway.
Go to Adjust > Brightness/Contrast> Histogram Adjustment (Ctrl+shift+H in PSP8). You'll get a screen that looks like this:
Uncheck the "Overlay Histogram Result" box. This isn't vital, but it makes things easier.
Switch from "Luminance" to "Colors" in the 'Edit' part. It will default to the red option.
You'll see a grey mountain range looking thing in the window:
Check to see whether the grey reaches the far right wall of the window. If it does, you don't need to play with it. If it doesn't, carry on with these steps:
Underneath the window there are three arrows: one over 'Low', one over 'Gamma' and one over 'High' (black, grey, white respectively). You are going to move the white arrow (over 'high') to the left until it touches where the grey stops.
Sometimes you'll find that the grey stops and then starts again, very low to the bottom. In this case, it's best to pull the arrow to the place where it stops for the first time.
Once you've done Red, click the drop down arrow and move on to Green. Do the same thing as Red, if you need to.
After Green, move onto Blue and repeat, if needed.
After you've done Blue, click OK.
I've ended up with this:
Note: The Histogram function is not an adjustment layer, but something that happens on the layer itself. This means the next time you use it, you will have to 'reset' the function to use it again, or else you'll have the previous image's results.
Step Three: Further Adjustment (Optional)
So, the cap is looking much better, but it's not perfect. What next? If you're in Photoshop, you can just use Variations to even things out. In Paintshop, bring up the Color Balance.
Decide what colours are still a problem in your image. Color Balance works in pairs of opposite colours. So, if you have a cap that's too Red, you need more Cyan. If you have a cap that's too Cyan (neon blueish green), you need more Red.
Too Magenta (pink) - add Green.
Too Green, add Magenta.
Too Blue (darker blue, light blues tend to be more Cyan) - add Yellow.
Too Yellow - add Blue.
The settings will be different for each cap you use, so fiddle around with sliders until you like what you have. I tend to stick with Midtones, but you can venture into Highlights and Shadows if you want. For this cap, here's what I ended up with:
Final Results:
And that's it! You can lighten the cap and colour it regularly now, if you want, or just leave it as is.
Other Examples:
(Originals may have been lightened to show the difference. You should not lighten your images before using the Histogram on them)
01: Blue Tint (cap by djcapslock
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02: Orange Tint (image from ceciliacara.net)
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03: Yellow Tint (this cap has been sitting in a folder for years, I'm not sure where I originally got it)
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If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Thanks for dropping by!
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