How to Make Selective Color Correction in Adobe Photoshop

It is possible to make selective color corrections to an area of a image in Adobe Photoshop. You will need to use a combination of tools to accomplish this and it does take practice and patience. The original photograph in this example has bright colors in the "swim noodles" but the lush Hawaiian jungle looks like mud in the background. In this example we will only make a color correction of the trees in the background.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop 6 or later running on a MAC or PC computer.
• A copy of a suitable image

1. Open Photoshop select FILE/OPEN or press CONTROL + O to open the browse window. Select your file and press OK. Once your file is open select the area to be corrected using the MAGIC WAND tool. If you do not know how to use this tool read my other article on E-How on "How to Use the Magic Wand in Adobe Photoshop". You may also use the Laso Tool to select the area for correction but I find this to be more difficult.

2. 
   Curves of Original

   From the IMAGE menu select adjust curves. This defaults to the RGB mode which allows you to adjust the curves of all three color channels. IF you have converted the file to CMYK for Printing it will show the CMYK mode. From the CHANNEL drop down menu, select GREEN. Notice the green "curve is a straight line. The upper right hand corner is the deepest shadow and the lower left is the brightest highlight

3. 
   Adjusting the curves

   We want to change the amount of green only in the shadow areas of the selection. Use the mouse to grab the curve in the upper third of the box and slide it slowly until the green trees look acceptable to you. You can select another point along the curve and move it in a different direction. You may want to lower the green in the highlight and this tool will allow you to make multiple moves. In this case we only want to change the shadow.

4. 
   Color Adjusted Image

   Click OK to save the correction. If you are pleased with the correction, save the file to disk. If not, revert and start over. You can adjust each color curve individually or correct total color saturation by selecting the RGB channel.

Tips & Warnings

• To make a similar change in CMYK you would have to adjust the CYAN and MAGENTA curves to make change to green.
• Do not convert to CMYK if the output device is a computer screen.
• Be careful when making your selection with the Magic Wand tool. We tend to look only at the area we are editing and forget that we may be selecting areas in other parts of the image that have similar contrast ratios.
• If you are converting the file to CMYK for Print, make the conversion prior to doing this sort of color correction.

Resources

• Adobe Photoshop

[coachmac4]

on 6/27/2008 As always, clear, concise instructions! Thanks 5 stars!

[L1onherd]

on 6/27/2008 Great article!

[Cric]

on 6/27/2008 Thanks. Good tutorial.

[Dogh]

on 4/20/2008 I am new to Photoshop, and was just searching for a basic tutorial on converting a white washed-out sky to a nice pastel blue. This 'may be' what I'm looking for. Thanks. 'Dogh

[Hinda]

on 12/19/2007 Another good one, thanks!