Sunday 23 January 2011

Preview photographic colour variations in Photoshop

The link below is a video on 'smart objects' in Photoshop – skip it to 43:00 mins and you'll find a really useful way of seeing what one of your photographs might look under different colour conditions.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/episode-3/

Basically, you can set up a file in Photoshop that acts as a template into which you can 'drop' any photograph you have and see lots of variations of it. The number of variations is up to you – after all, you set them up. The way the photograph varies is also up to what adjustments you choose – but colour adjustments are the main options.

I followed the video to create a template for lots of different black and white filters on a photo of of mine. The differences can sometimes be very subtle, but you'll find some great results – like the second one in from the left (top row). It has a really good wide range of tones and not too harsh a contrast. Photoshop does offer predefined variations but they're very basic and you don't get much control over them so this is the way to go.

2 comments:

  1. oooh, very cool! is this for cs5? i really need to update at home, im stuck on cs3.

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  2. Oh dear, well suggest it as a valentine's gift to your bf - it's only . . . a thousand quid or so . . . Eeek.

    Congrats to you on your engagement by the way.

    Anyway, lots of CS3 vids here if you're interested:
    http://tv.adobe.com/search/?q=CS3&product=Photoshop&version=CS3&sortby=date

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