Layer Adjustment masking 2 Spot color Correction

Happy Friday to all you busy Photographers.  Don't forget to set your clock up one hour on Saturday Night...It is time to Spring Forward.  It is Time to Spring Anything....tired of the cold damp nasties.....

Last issue on the Blog,  I did a burning and dodging with Layer Adjustment Masking layers.

Today I am going to show the advantages of using LAM in Color Balance mode to spot correct balance in an image.

When would I want to do this?

Maybe an outdoor portrait that has green in the shadows, or a sunny day snow picture that has blue shadows?
  Or  any other time you have a stray or color that is wrong, bad, yucky, distracting, or you just want to change for the sake of change.

Let's learn how to fix things like that very quickly with just a few clicks and strokes of a brush.


Here we have a duck swimming in some pretty green water that does not look good, and we want to change.

In the Layers Pallet, select the Layer Adjustment Mask symbol...the black and white circle to get the menu.

Select Color Balance and slide the magenta / green slider to the magenta and the blue slider as shown below.

Next...Select a soft edge Brush.

Make sure Black and White are your colors with Black on top.

Click  Edit> Fill> Forground Color.

Now your image looks just like the first image here.  The mask has been removed.  ON the layer, the mask is now black and you can see though to the layer below.

But here is the fun part.  Change the foreground color to White,

With your soft edge brush at 100%, start painting at the bottom of the water, and work your way up painting in better looking water.

Around the bird, you may switch back and forth from white to black and back again as you paint around the bird.  To look like this.....

I over did the magenta abit here so I went back with another LAM and added some green and did the same thing again.

Then I added a new thing I learned from Michael Barton last weekend to get the final image.

this is Pencil Sketch Sharpening.

Cool huh?  I will pass this along next week.....

remember the original

Learn how to use the many other tools in Layer Adjustment Masks...They sure can come in handy.

PS.. On my monitor I still see a bit to much magenta and/or blue  in the low densities..so I should have lowered the opacity of the LAYER MASK....

That is another total control options that this technique gives you.

Thanks for hangin around, and have a great weekend.  I will sign on again from Florida on Monday.

Remember too, I do work in your studio, one on one as a studio consultant, not only in Photoshop, but in many other areas too.  If interested, contact me in your best way...

bdroberts@bdroberts.com 

Have a great day!

Bruce