Quick Photoshop Secrets 13: Add Awesome Colours In Your Photos
There are some great techniques for instantly adding interesting colours to your images in Photoshop. In this week’s Photoshop Secrets, I show you a little method I stumbled across a couple of years ago which will add awesome colours to your photos, and make sure that any warm filters you add, are targeted towards the correct areas.
Essentially we’re using Photo filters, clipped to a 50% grey layer to gain more control over how the colour is applied to the scene. But it is the Blend Mode of the grey layer where the real magic happens.
How To Add Warmth in Photoshop
One way to add colours in your photos is by injecting more warmth into sunrises or sunsets.
1. Add a photo filter.
2. Select the filter that you want to apply.
3. Adjust the density to increase or decrease the strength.
4. Remove unwanted warmth by adding a new layer between your image and photo filter.
5. With your new layer selected. Go to Edit>Fill.
6. For ‘Content’ select 50% Grey and click OK.
7. Change the Blend Mode of the layer to Soft Light.
8. Select the Photo Filter layer. Then, right-click and choose Create Clipping Mask.
Now we have added a much more natural warmth to our image without saturating areas like the sky.
Adding Colours to Shadows in Photoshop
Another way to add colours in your photos is by using a colour Photo Filter.
1. Fist, Add a new Layer.
2. Change the Blend Mode to Soft Light.
3. Fill this new layer by going to Edit>Fill.
4. Choose ‘50% Gray’ for contents and click OK.
5. Add a Photo Filter.
6. Choose a coloured filter to apply.
7. Adjust the density to raise or lower the strength of the filter.
8. Right-click on the layer and select Create Clipping Mask.
9. To increase the strength of the filter, even more, change the blend mode from Soft Light to Hard Light.
10. If the effect is too strong reduce the opacity of the layer until you’re happy with it.
If you like this article you might also like to learn how to Add Colour to Highlights.
Alternatively, If you want to change the colour of a specific object you might enjoy this article, click HERE.
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Thank you, Jimmy. Really great tutorial. Enjoy your time in the UK and good luck getting some great photos in the U.S.
Thank you very much.
Happy New Year Jimmy, hope it was a good one. Great to have you back, well at least these Raya Pro tutorials, love this one, very clever and subtle as ever. Just a thought, but do you have any plans whilst in UK, realize you may not be sure of your movements but would be great to meet the man behind all this phenomenal work. All the best.
Thanks Tim! At the moment it’s just rest and preparation for the U.S. The weather will be quite different going from Autumn in NZ to summer in the U.S. so I need to get organized. But after the U.S. I’ll be back in the UK for the long term and would love to meet up with you, and connect with more UK-based photographers.
Thanks
Jimmy
Coolio, very much look forward that. Happy travels Jimmy.
Thanks for the tip Jimmy, really simple and effective. Glad to hear you are coming to visit us ‘down under’. If you need a guide or someone to shoot with around Melbourne, let me know.
Thank you for the kind offer Wayne. I’m not going to be in Melbourne long, sadly. Just a passing visit on my way to Phillip Island. Looking forward to shooting some beautiful seascapes along there.
Jimmy
Cheers Jimmy, understandable. On your way down to the Island, look towards the Hills of the Dandenong Ranges. That’s where I live, with the world famous Yarra Valley at my back door. Hope you enjoy your time in my part of the world. Come back and do some talks sometime soon.