№1 — Luminosity masks
Luminosity masks - one of the methods of post-production of images, which separates the light data to frequencies in channels and uses it as masks in adjustment layers. This is a very powerful and non-destructive tool for image correction, which helps to effect lights, darks and midtones directly. We found few Youtube lessons, which will help you understand how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga17QmP-TTY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Xm4rZYhqo&t=7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH_MgJs9zHI
You can make layer masks yourself or just download plugin Easy Panel to make a separation automatically. It also helps to increase detailing and sharpness.
Plugin can be downloaded from the official website.
№2 — Color Lookup and LUTs
Usually LUTs are used to convert video from many different inputs to one file format and to make a color correction of the materials in video making. At first, you need to know that LUTs are color presets, which help to change one color settings to another, and add some dramatic changes to your scene.
Starting from CC version of Photoshop, you can find a tool there, called “Color Lookup”, which will apply LUTs to your image.
Making of LUT
So, we have made 238 adjustment layers and now we need to merge all these layers to one LUT.
Go to — File/Export/Color Lookup Tables... Leaving basic settings and saving LUT to needed directory.
Applying of LUT
To apply LUT, we need an adjustment layer Color Lookup, go to Load 3D LUT in menu and choose your LUT with .CUBE dimension.
This is how you can optimize the process of color correction with a batch of images.
№3 — Masking With the Use of Channels
This is really simple to mask the objects by dint of channels. Just duplicate the most contrasty channel. You can raise the contrast even more by pressing Cmd/Ctrl + L. Then you need to make a selection from that and mask the layer. You can always correct the mask. This works very good for hair, plants, or other small-detailed complex objects, where you won’t use the Pen Tool. And don’t forget to Layer>Matting>Defringe, to work with the edge.
To make more accurate mask you can use Dodge & Burn Tool, by affecting dark and light areas of the image.
For dark image areas use the Burn Tool and Shadow at the top menu.
For light image areas use the Dodge Tool and Highlights or Midtones at the top menu.
№4 — Selective Color Correction
For example, we need to change the red macaron color. Let’s make an adjustment layer Hue/Saturation, choose Reds from the list and try to play with sliders.
As you see, this affects not only the red macaron, but the whole image, as red color exists in other objects.
There is a really powerful instrument to select more accurate range of color and get rid of unwanted color frequencies.
To use it:
— press the hand button in the lower left corner and you will see a dropper
— click on needed color with the dropper
Further, we need to cut an unwanted color frequencies. Use sliders, moving them until you achieve the desired result.
Now you can change the color and saturation of the red macaron only.
Come on, try this, it will take 30 seconds.) Here’s an image to try.
№5 — Lens Flare
There is a filter, generating lens flare in hotoshop. At first, we need to make a new blank layer and fill it with black.
— Then Filter>Render>LensFlare...
— Play with sliders, choose suitable flare and press Ok
— Then use Screen Mode
Bonus Track
At this Render menu you can find some more useful tools. For example, the trees generator.
Go to Filter>Render>Tree...
You can choose the type of the tree, edit the number of leaves, their size, lightning and a lot more. This is helpful when you make sketches or work with backgrounds in matt.
And more features there:
Flame — the flame generator. Works only with Shape in Pen Tool
Lighting Effects — the light source generator
Picture Frame — the photo frame generator
Clouds и Difference Clouds — the cloud generator
Fibers — the fiber generator
That’s all. Next time, you will know how to make a sandwich, which can be placed on a magazine cover. :)