IWA-HWG Photoshop Course. Weeks 1 & 2 Lab

Part 1. Color-Correct an Image Using Curves

Patricio should not be blue on his wedding day. I took a photo of my student Patricio outside the church without adjusting my camera for outside, so the photo came out with a blue cast. Below I list some of the details of the color correction scheme using Photoshop's Curves control that I applied.

• Using the threshold command I identified a region of shadow (a sample from the limo's tire had RGB of (21, 21, 21)) and a region of highlight (a sample from the top of the open door of the limo had RGB of (208, 240, 255).
• Since the tuxedo was white I sampled two of the shadowed regions (one under the lapel) to use for neutral gray midtones. I found (71, 124, 184) and (84, 157, 225).
• I added a Curves Adjustment Layer. On the red channel I put on Input/Output points of (21, 21), (71, 126), (84,155), and (208, 234). On the green channel I put on Input/Output points of (21, 21), (124, 126), (157,155), and (240, 234). On the blue channel I put on Input/Output points of (21, 21), (184, 126), (225,155), and (255, 234).
• I added three medium-gray Soft-Light (three different layers so that I could change their opacity independently, though I guess I could have changed the opacity of the brush strokes). In the first, I slightly whitened Patricio's teeth; in the second I whitened the whites of his eyes (only noticeable up close); and in the third I darkened under his chin on what would be his left side. The last brush stroke was also Gaussian blurred.

Right click on the thumbnail below to save the Photoshop file

Click here for a side-by-side comparison of two jpeg images.

Part 2. Restore an Image using Blend Modes, add a Sepia or Selenium tone (or any other color wash such as a cyanotype etc.) and retouch any tears and/or scratches

I worked on a scan of an old photograph of my mother in her sister's wagon. (Click here to see the tif file of the original scan.)

• I cleaned up the image using mainly the Healing Brush Tool and the Eraser tool (with a low opacity and flow).
• I duplicated the layer and changed its blend mode to multiply to darken the image.
• I added a neutral-gray Soft Light layer and brushed in the M in "Mary" on the wagon and a few other touches.
• I added a Curves adjustment layer to make the shadows a little darker and the highlights a little brighter.
• I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with a Hue of 30 and a Saturation of 25 to "colorize" the the image with a sepia tone.

Right click on the thumbnail below to save the Photoshop file

Click here for a side-by-side comparison of two jpeg images.

Part 3. Extra

My extra work can be found under Question 5 of my answers to the review questions.