Add Depth and Color to Any Image in Photoshop

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Today we are using an image from our latest Halloween contest to show you how to add color to enhance the overall feel of an image. We start off by cropping the image in a little giving more attention to the subject and getting rid of some negative space.

When creating special effects with makeup and costuming often there will be a subtle transition between skin and the makeup. In this image there was a small gap between the person's face and the headpiece that covers their hair. We use a clone stamp to cover over this gap and make it look as though the transition is seamless. It only takes about a minute and can really help being an effect together.

Sharpening
A great way to pull attention to a specific part of an image is through sharpening. To sharpen just one part of an image we use a stamp visible layer set to blending mode VIVID LIGHT and then apply a high pass filter to bring out the detail. Then we place a layer mask on the layer and invert it to make the entire layer invisible. Painting white over the eyes on the layer mask allows the layer to be visible in that are and bring the sharpening to the eyes. The resulting effect is a lot more attention being brought to the eyes.

Coloring
A couple minutes with curves adjustment layers can dramatically transform an image. In this case we add complimentary colors to an image that was relatively desaturated beforehand. Adding a bit of orange to the hair and foreground while adding blue to the background adds a bit of color depth and makes the image a bit more dynamic.

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Closed Caption:

hey guys and welcome to phlearn my name
is aaron nace you can find me and the
entire florin team on Twitter any time a
day at flirting today we're going to be
doing a really cool episode we've got a
great
this image is a halloween image by Roman
it's super scary i'm gonna show you guys
some great things you can do in the
background and in the foreground to kind
of create exist like add colors that
don't even exist there and also do some
really cool retouching things kind of
like bring some special effects that you
guys that might be done around the
Halloween episode around Halloween time
to kind of bring everything together so
let's go ahead and get into it
something really cool so this is our
image by Roman and the first thing i
want to do is that we're just going to
zoom in and kind of see all this really
nice makeup that's got going on and the
nice lighting and just really really
well done
I like this image it's it's definitely
scary but I it it works - it's not like
super is not too dark it's it's just
it's just right on i think so
one thing i want to do is kind of like
see if I can blend in maybe we've got
like some things wrapped around this
person's head so I'm going to see if I
we can blend that sort of thing in
let's just zoom in a little bit more and
i'm going to use the clone stamp to do
this so we can hit ask for the clone
stamp tool and basically what we're
going to do is I'm going to sample some
from this side of her head and also some
from that side of her head and we're
just going to paint over this sort of
thing
so this will help out a lot when you're
actually doing the photoshoot sometimes
you don't need to get all these tiny
little detail is perfect because you can
just take care of them in photoshop and
it really doesn't take too long
so let's just start over here on the
left so ask for the clone stamp tool and
I'm going to hold alt or option + a
sample an area and then paint right back
over it
so I'm sampling up higher and now we're
just going to paint down lower and we're
going to see it's just going to blend in
really well now for a smaller area just
make your brush a little bit smaller you
can do that really quickly but just by
holding ctrl + option + clicking and
dragging from the left to the right if
you're on the Mac it's good earth if
you're on a PC it's going to be ctrl a
ctrl alt and right click and drag all
right there we go and i'm just doing the
same thing here kind of sampling from
down a little bit lower and then
painting it right there
now you can go from above down lower
just like I'm doing here or you can go
from the skin lower and then kind of
like painting up or it's really nice
because this is actually it's relatively
similar
we've got you know a light color here on
the face with the face paint and then a
light color up there as well so the
blending here really doesn't take too
long and it it's pretty seamless and
then here in the darker areas i'm just
sampling the dark areas and then
painting those back in so it's actually
really really nice
all right there we go we'll kind of come
in from the top and get that too
so this is just one really quick thing
you can do to kind of help everything
black blend in together and just make
you know just make that effect kind of
like really come together and then it'll
just kind of look like her head or
whatever is just turning into this sort
of thing so you can see that didn't a
clue
take too long just turn this off and on
well looks like I forgot to create a new
layer
I've been on vacation for a couple of
weeks if you had a notice and apparently
i forgot how to create layers in the
meantime
but let's just go to window and then
down here to history
there we go and we can actually see if i
go back to the original and just click
on there we can see there's the original
and then down to what we've done to so
that's another way of seeing before and
after
ok now let's go ahead and create a new
layer the next thing i want to do is I
want to add some contrast in the eyes
like really make these pop one hit shift
option command end which is currently
create a new layer and then shift option
command
II which makes stamp visible layer all
right we're going to put this layer from
normal i'm going to change us down to
vivid light so it's going to be pretty
strong would affect here but next we're
going to make it a little bit
ab better we're gonna make it look make
more sense and add that shopping so
we're going to filter other any here
down to high pass
so adding this high pass filter let's
just zoom in there you can see
given the different radius you choose
here down really low you don't see much
of an effect as I bring the radius up
you kind of see it has more effect and
then right around here it just was
horrible
so just don't do that and you'll be good
I'm really here there's no rule
there's no rule on what number is going
to work for you is pretty much just
whatever looks the best
I try to push things like this as far as
I can sometimes especially with this
what we really wanted to look ready
like push it as far as I can before it
starts to look bad and here that looks
like about three pixels
all right let's just hit okay and you
can turn this off and on kind of see the
before and after their now what I'm
going to do is I'm going to hold alt or
option and click on the layer mask
button
that's just going to make a black
leather mask and then I'm going to paint
white on my layer mask layer mask just
make layers other visible or invisible
so what i'm doing here is basically that
effect that super sharpening effect
I'm just having invisible over the eyes
maybe that you know the lips and the
couple areas of the teeth and things
like that so i really don't need it to
be visible everywhere and what this says
is it really helps to draw attention
just to those areas so it's just turn
that off and on
we can see what that did they're pretty
cool ok now what I'm going to do is I
think we're going to crop in a little
bit
there's a lot of empty space up here
which I don't mind but it might just be
a little bit too much
I'm gonna hit see for the crop tool and
then just click here for the top left
and i'm gonna hold down the shift key to
constrain proportions and then we go to
zoom in a little bit more or crop and
zoom and something similar
there we go and that looks pretty good
let's go ahead and give this color like
a little bit of color of the hair
sometimes it's just a little bit nice i
know that you know there's definitely a
point in making things dark but there's
some really nice detail here in the hair
i just don't really see it because it's
too dark and it's really not that
saturated so I was thinking it might be
nice actually like bring this up in
lighter lightness and bring some color
into that as well
now we can add some contrasting color
here in the background it's going to
kind of like bring the image together in
a new way
so to do that it's not really that hard
we're going to do is I'm gonna grab a
curves adjustment layer
we're going to click you know we want
this area to be a little bit brighter so
with this what we're going to do is
going to affect the entire image and
then we'll just use a.m the layer mask
to define just this area i'm gonna click
here in the middle of this RGB just
bring us a little bit lighter
let's go to our red channel and i'm
going to pull this up a little bit to
add some more reds in our blue channel
we're going to pull that down
that's gonna take away some of the blue
which kind of adds yellow so it gives us
that nice orange look there
ok now that's visible everywhere if you
don't want it to be visible everywhere
which for this
in this case I really don't all you have
to do is hit command-i that's going to
invert the layer mask here and then
we're gonna use your brush tool to paint
white just wear this hair is in other
areas like that
and if it's not exactly perfect here
don't worry about it you can always
change your values here with your curves
adjustment layer like here it looks like
maybe it's just a little bit too strong
like the little bit too much
it's just paint back visible maybe it's
like a 20-percent over these other areas
too kind of like bring it back
another process this image as well all
right
and there we go and again you don't have
to have a visible everywhere but just a
little bit of color that kind of looks
nice it just kind of adds a little bit
more and if you wanted to have it you
know like a little bit stronger in
effect you could go in here
back to the RGB and kind of like bring
that a little bit brighter or you could
i'm dr. is kinda defeats the purpose of
what we were doing but you could just
make it a little bit brighter if you
wanted to if you want to kind of like
lower the effect you could just change
your opacity here as well so there are a
lot of different ways you can do these
sort of things
there we go and that actually looks
pretty good so we're getting some color
they're kind of like bring it around now
i really like contrast between warm and
cool colors i think it works really well
as you see it a lot in nature like think
the Sun sets and things like that you
have a warm right next to the cool so
I'm gonna bring like a cool color here
in the background
it's just going to kind of bring
everything together so to do that what
we're going to do is I'm going to grab
an adjustment layer
we're going to go to curves again all
right let's go back to our RGB i'm going
to click here on the bottom left and
just kind of drag that up a little bit
it's going to make raise my black . a
little bit we're going to do the same
thing with our blue channel and that's
just going to give us some of those nice
blues there and it's the Blues are going
to be the blues the blues are getting
could be coming out of the shadows here
let's go to the green channel and i'm
going to pull this right in the middle
and just kind of bring that up
that's going to put give us a little bit
of that blue screen ok now this I don't
really want to be visible everywhere but
kind of like coming out from the
background I think would be nice
what we're going to do is basically just
use a layer mask here just like we did
before so I'm going to click on the
layer mask it command I and now we're
going to use just a regular brush tool
again and I'm going to paint this back
white visible behind your subject
in this case the background is
relatively out of focus and we're just
having like a blur of color here so i'm
not really that concerned with having
like a super clean layer mask it's okay
if it's you know
if it goes right above the skin a little
bit in general I I wanted to like not
cover what time is the skin on the
subject
I don't want it to be visible there but
if it comes over a little bit
it's not really that bad of a thing and
that's kind of how color and light works
anyway it
they kind of bleed together anyway so
not the worst thing in the world
all right it looks pretty good it's a
little too strong so i'm going to now
paint with black and about the ten
percent flow just kind of like a this
back in from the edges so it gives it a
little bit more of a natural decay there
there we go
pretty cool so they just added like ass
little bit of blue blue screen
you know nothing crazy they're just kind
of like gives a little bit more
so I'm going to take that same idea
we're going to push it a little bit
farther
what I'd like to do is grab go again two
curves we're going to the same thing and
this time
RG we will pull that up again just a
little bit and then i'm going to pull
the red channel up actually
there we go and then let's pull the blue
channel back down
this is similar to what we did with the
hair and let's just close that up any
command I there and now we're just going
to bring this into like parts of the
background like where the the blue kind
of fades away i'm going to add some of
this orange here
all right and all this is like you know
it's totally aesthetic it's just
whatever you feel like would add or you
know work for different images if you
don't feel like this works for the image
just you know don't worry about it i'm
just kind of like adding these couple
different steps
let's do one more thing now these layers
that i added let's just turn them off
and on and they had a lot of color
so if you want to make things darker
brighter I just be sure you do that
under these layers that actually affect
the color
the reason is because these layers are
they fact the color but not necessarily
the brightness and if you do want to
affect the brightness
it's going to work a lot better if you
do that underneath the color layer so
the color layers can reach stay a little
more true
so what we're going to do I'll blow all
these layers just let's just shift click
them and he command G to group those
together
let's just say i want to have like a bit
yet I'm gonna go to my curves click here
in the middle
just write that down a little bit let's
add hit command-i and then I'm just
going to paint white
you know just right around here and
that's just going to make that area
little bit darker
there we go which is going to help draw
attention to our subject there we go
but you can see it's not affecting our
color as much because we did it below
our color layers and let's do another
curves adjustment layer making that a
little bit brighter and then I'm going
to paint this in here we go right over
the eyes
so it's just kind of coming a little bit
brighter right where our subject is and
that's the whole point is like you know
looking right right there at your
subject
cool that looks really good they're so
let's go ahead and group those together
you can see it really didn't take too
long everything that we did we have an
image it's a little bit more dynamic
than what we started with and the color
working there I think works really well
so let's see the before and the after
I'm kind of like looking at our subjects
face a little bit more especially
because the sharpener on the eyes and
just the color in general I think I
think adds system is just a little bit
and if it's if it's too much like I'm
looking at the blue and maybe the blues
too much
it's okay you can just turn this thing
off and on if you decide you want more
green in there
just go to your green channel and pull
that up and then there's going to be
more cream or less screen you can do
that two more magenta
you can have a lot of fun with these
things even after you've already created
the layers so don't feel like you're
stuck out with whatever you've done at
it's just a really cool way to kind of
get that going
and yeah I think it looks really cool so
go ahead and do it yourself if you have
images that you feel like you know kind
of could use some of this color work
with complementary colors like red and
green
you know the nice orange and blue work
at those colors add some in the
background and some in the foreground
and see what they do get a lot of really
cool images like that so that's it guys
thanks so much for watching florin
it's good to be back I feel good nice
and rested
tranquilo it's been nice thanks so much
guys and I will see you soon bye
everyone
hi guys cat from flirting here for more
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