How to make the most Natural Color Correction in Photoshop!

So what if I told you there was a second dimension of data in your photos that can help you make the most accurate color correction ever?  You probably wouldn’t believe me because it is a bold statement and you might not be as into Sci-Fi as I am.  However, this other dimension is not in a galaxy far far away as it sounds, it is as simple as inverting your photo to access it.

The idea for this type of color correction comes from a new course I developed for the f.64 Elite community, Ps Foundations:  The Inverted Image.   It uses the principles of Color Theory, more specifically, the Complementary Color relationship to help you find the most natural color to add to your photo to reduce the color cast or fix the White Balance.  While that might sound complicated, it is rather simple.

1.  Start out by duplicating your Background Layer in Photoshop (Ctrl + J, CMD + J on Mac)

2.  Then Inverted the Image (Ctrl + I, CMD + I on Mac)

3.  Now go up to Filter > Blur > Average :  This will give you the blended color for all the colors in the image.  Think of it as a protein shake when you mix all of the ingredients they change to one color, right?   Well, this specific color is the color we will use to offset the White Balance of the photo.

4.  Set the blended color layer to Soft Light

5.   Above the blended color, add an HSL Adjustment Layer.  Make it a Clipping Mask by holding ALT (Option on Mac) and clicking between the two layers.

6.   Using Saturation in the HSL layer you can increase the amount of color correction by moving it to the right, slowly.

7.  You can increase or decrease the intensity of the color correction with the Lightness adjustment.  That’s it!

8.  If you would like to add a hint of color, try changing the Hue.

9.  That’s it!  Simple right?  Well if not, you can always check out the video below for step by step instructions

Check out the entire Course!

Blake Rudis
f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer, he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
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