Tutorial: Colour Enhancement with Photoshop

So you are an avid photographer, you have a decent digital camera and a good eye for composition but your photos just never have that edginess or the intensity of colour that you are accustomed to by the pro’s…

Well today, I am going to teach you how to replicate that using a small quick trick that I learnt when I first starting shooting.

Now before I continue, bear in mind two things, rules if you will, that I stand by and remind myself of each time I pull my camera out of my bag for a shoot.

1.      A camera doesn’t make you a photographer – It’s not the camera that makes you a good photographer, or makes your pictures look any better. That’s up to you.

2.      Extensive Post Production Photoshop or EPPP as I like to call it does not make you a better photographer – Opening up a badly framed, flat photo in Photoshop and cropping and editing it to make it look like it was taken with a Nikon D3 and 20 years experience behind the lens does not make you a better photographer.

Now while rule number two may seem like I am being hypocritical here, I am in fact not. The photo I am going to edit for this tutorial was framed how I envisioned it, and the colours came out pretty much spot on. I managed this by adjusting the settings on my camera, fiddling with the white balance, and using a test subject until I was satisfied that the photos would come out how I saw them in my head.

Lastly before I continue, don’t think that I am pushing you away from Photoshop work on a photo. The way I see it is that Photoshop is the Darkroom of Digital Photography, and just like there are certain desired outputs that with film can only be achieved by messing around with developer and fixer combinations in a Dark Room, there are also certain styles that can only be achieved once you have edited them in Photoshop.

Today however, we are working on a Digital Darkroom method I call Colour Enhancement.

Lets Begin.

Step 1

Open your photo in Photoshop. If its still in Raw format or really large, don’t worry about that. We are going to be reducing the size of the image for online publishing and not print.

To open, click on File > Open
Shortcut: Cmd + O (Mac) or Ctrl + O (Windows)

The image I selected is from the Stealing Love Jones acoustic tour that I shot recently.

Step 2

Lets resize the image, as you will above the image is at 25% of the original size, too big for your online portfolio / Flickr or Facebook galleries.

Click on Image > Image Size

Shortcut: Cmd + Alt + I (Mac) or Ctrl + Alt + I (Windows)

Now a good size for online, and you should write this down, is the following:

Portrait: Width = 500px

Landscape: Width = 750px

If Constrain Proportions is selected (which it should be) you should see your images being reduced to the following:

Portrait: Width = 500px and Height = 750px

Landscape: Width = 750px and Height = 500px

Don’t worry though if they are out by a few pixels, or out by a few 100 pixels on the height. As long as you stuck to the width set above, then you are doing great.

Okay, now onto step three.

Step 3

Zoom your image to 100% (Cmd + / Ctrl +) – Im sure you by now see that the Mac shortcut and Windows Shortcuts are the same except for the Cmd/Ctrl switch.

Now first of all, when you reduce an image, you may lose a bit of the sharpness, so lets sharpen your image.

Click on Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen

You should see that the picture is slightly crisper. Happy? Good, lets move on to the next step.

Step 4

Duplicate your image by selecting the layer and dragging it to the new layer button on the layers palette or using the shortcut

Cmd + J / Ctrl + J

You should now have 2 layers, one called Background and one called Layer 1.

Step 5

Lets convert this layer to Black and White. Now I know you are thinking, is this guy nuts or what, I am trying to enhance my photo’s colour, not make it Black and White, but I need you to bear with me, plus, we are nearly done.

To convert to Black and White can be done in one of two ways, depending on the version of Photoshop you are using. Now I am using Photoshop CS3, which has a Black and White feature, but if you aren’t using said version, don’t panic, older versions (as well as CS3) have a feature called Desaturate. Using either, convert the layer to Black and White.

Black & White – Image > Adjustments > Black & White (Cmd + Alt + Shift + B)

Desaturate – Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (Cmd + Shift + U)

You should now see a black and white image and have 2 layers, one colour (Background) and one black & white (Layer 1).

Onto the final, magic step.

Step 6

Make sure you have the Black & White layer (Layer 1) selected. In the layer palette, you will see a drop down box, with Normal being the current selected option.

Click on the drop down, and select Overlay as the Blending Mode for the Black & White layer.

Now look at your image. You will notice that colours are richer, the blacks are darker, and overall, the image seems far more appealing. But wait, what’s that? It looks too dark you say.

That’s easy to fix. Next to the drop down box you just used, is a box labeled opacity. 100% is solid, and the lower you go the more transparent the image becomes.

Adjust the number between 50 – 100% to get your desired look, and then you are done. You should have a nice, crisp and colour enhanced photo that looks like the one below.

For interest’s sake, I used opacity of 80% on the photo above.

Don’t forget to save your newly enhanced image being careful to not overwrite the original.

Until next time, keep shooting.

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7 Responses to “Tutorial: Colour Enhancement with Photoshop”

1. Goblin says:

   February 9, 2009 at 10:17 am

   Really nice tutorial Byron, thanks

   Reply
2. Byron says:

   February 9, 2009 at 10:28 am

   Thanks Goblin
   Hope it helps…

   Reply
3. SheBee says:

   February 9, 2009 at 11:12 am

   I agree with Goblin, I plan on putting this to good use when I finally get PS up and running again. Thanks B

   Reply
4. Glugster says:

   February 9, 2009 at 11:35 am

   Great! Now even I can start using Photoshop!

   Reply
5. Darryn says:

   February 9, 2009 at 6:13 pm

   Cool tutorial – will try it out sometime…

   Reply
6. Byron says:

   February 10, 2009 at 12:41 pm

   Thanks for all the comments guys and gal…
   When you do use it, be sure to show me so I can comment on your pretty photos

   Reply
7. Brosnon says:

   February 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm

   Nice one Byron.

   Colour enhancement is one of those stock skills that you need to learn if you really want to make images pop.

   Reply