In this little bonus step (which is completely optional of course), I'm going to finish off my image by boosting the contrast using a Curves adjustment layer and what's commonly referred to as an S curve, named for no other reason than it's a curve in the shape of the letter "S" (sort of, anyway). Bonus Step: Boosting The Contrast With A Curves Adjustment Layer The contrast could use a little boost, so as a bonus step, let's quickly increase the contrast in the image using a Curves adjustment layer. The water is now back to its original blue color after painting over it with black.Īt this point, we're done with our tinting and enhancing colors, but there's one more thing I'd like to do with this image. Unfortunately, the Photo Filter doesn't have a preset pink or purple color for me to select, but it does have magenta which will work nicely, so I'm going to click on the down-pointing arrow for the "Filter" option and select "Magenta" from the list (of course, you can choose whichever color you like for your image): I'm going to stick with the preset colors since they'll work just fine for my image here, and I remember from when I took this photo that the sky had a lot more pink and purple in it than what the image is currently showing. The only difference between them is that the "Filter" option allows us to select from a list of preset colors, including some that are based on common warming and cooling lens filters (they have the words "Warming" and "Cooling" in the color names), while the "Color" option simply brings up Photoshop's Color Picker and allows us to choose exactly which color we want. They both do exactly the same thing, which is allow us to choose a color to tint our image with. At the top of its dialog box are two options, Filter and Color. The Photo Filter gives us two ways to choose a color. The Photo Filter is based on the idea of photographers adding colored filters to the camera lens to tint the photo, and we can achieve the exact same effect in Photoshop but with a lot more flexibility, since we can change the filter color to anything we want. Step 3: Choose The Color You Want To Tint The Selected Area With This brings up Photoshop's Photo Filter dialog box, and since we selected part of the image before adding the Photo Filter, only the area we selected will be affected by it. I'm going to use the Lasso Tool for this, so I'll select it from the Tools palette : You can use whichever selection tool you're most comfortable with (Lasso Tool, Pen Too, etc.). Shortcodes, Actions and Filters Plugin: Error in shortcode ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! Step 1: Select The First Area You Want To Work OnĪs I mentioned, I'm going to be using a couple of Photo Filter adjustment layers to enhance the colors in specific areas of the image separately, and the first area I want to work on is the sky, so before I add my first Photo Filter, I need to select the sky. The colors look much brighter and more vivid now, which makes the image itself more visually appealing, and it was all done with just a couple of simple Photo Filter adjustment layers. Thanks to Photoshop's Photo Filter though, I can easily bring back the colors the way I remember them, and even take them further if I want: Unfortunately, my digital camera didn't quite capture things the way I saw them, and the colors in the photo ended up looking a little dull:
Color filters for photos full#
The sky was full of pinks and purples and the ground was almost glowing in a warm orange. I took this photo during sunset on a recent trip to the lake, and the colors that evening were spectacular.
Color filters for photos how to#
It also has several valuable uses, one of which we've already looked at in a previous tutorial - Neutralizing Color Casts With The Photo Filter - and this time, we're going to learn how to use it to tint and enhance colors in an image.Īt its most basic level, the Photo Filter can be used to warm up or cool down the overall colors in a photo, but since we're going to be using the adjustment layer version which comes with a built-in layer mask, we can combine multiple Photo Filters to tint and enhance specific areas of an image individually, which is what we'll be doing in this tutorial. Not only is it easy to use, it's the only feature in Photoshop that lets you choose colors simply by selecting color names from a list! If Photoshop's Photo Filter isn't one of the most widely used features in the program, it certainly deserves to be. In this Photoshop tutorial, we're going to look at how to tint and enhance colors in a photo using Photoshop's Photo Filter.