Photoshop Color Correction.

Male Speaker: Hi, VRay users, Alex here your VRay Guide and today, I want to show you some basic color correction techniques that are used to improve my 3D renderings of course with the help of Photoshop. So was basically doesn't matter which 3D application you use, as long as it come to post-production all the methods are pretty much the same. So for this tutorial, I'll be using OpenEXR format, it's much more better than JPEG or PNG. This format got 32 bit channel and it got much more deeper pixel range. So it could bring all the missing colors, back to our image. As you see here, my image is a washed out image. I did it in purpose, so you could see all the effects, all the color corrections in real action and it will be much more noticeable.

The first thing I want to do is to correct my gamma. As you see here all these effects are not available because I'm using 3D, the 32-bit channel. So, I need to reduce it to 16 or 8 bit channel in order to activate all these effects. Exposure control, Exposure panel will give me that option to correct the gamma, as you see here. Sorry, I'm lowering it down and it brings much more contrast to my image. Still, I would like to leave it not really contrasted, because I can add more effects like curves and the brightness contrast later on. So just keeping in mind, that it is much more easier to add contrast than to remove it from your image.

Okay, after fixing my gamma, I go and I switch to 16-bit channel. And I get again this HDR converter. I fix my gamma already, so I just pressed okay. And I'll fix my curves by adding a little bit, a little bit down. The dark tones and high, a little bit to high tones, sound like that will be just fine. The next thing I can add a little bit contrast to my image. Something like I did, you can press the Preview here in order to see the effect, how the effect applies to the image.

The next thing is, color balance is basically the fix of your white balance in your physical camera. If you got it wrong, you can always fix it with the Photoshop. So what I do here is, I add a little bit yellow and little bit red on the hightones, on the midtones. And on the Highlights, I bring a little bit blue and a little bit cyan to my image. If I press preview, I can see that they get a little bit more, warm colors to my image.

Okay, the next thing is a common mistake among beginners. They get really green saturated vegetation leaves, grass and all that green color. So what I do, I just duplicate the image, in order to have the option to come back to the previous stage. And here I got two options. I can use the sponge tool on desaturate mode and desaturate it manually here or I can use a Hue/Saturation and go to the green color and to remove little bit green from my leaves.

Then if I add layer mask oops, if I add the layer mask I can remove it from unnecessary places and leave, all the green unsaturated color in a place that I wanted to be. So as I see here my grass need to be a little bit most saturated, so I can use the Sponge Tool and the saturate mode and to do it, here manually, to bring a little bit more saturation to my grass. So basically this is the tool that brings back or removes the saturation from your color. I'll merge down the image and duplicate it one more time.

And the next thing I want to do, is to highlight this area so it will draw a much more intention, high attention to my foreground. This I can do also with the two options with the Dodge Tool, sound something like this here or I can use also a Shadow/Highlights something like that. And again with the help of a layer mask, I can only leave it in the necessary in the wanted places like the foreground. See all my foreground is popping out. So this is basically the tool that brings highlights or removes the highlights from your image. And once again, I will merged it down and I duplicate it one more time.

And the next thing I want to do is, I want to blur a little bit my background. So, it fits more perfectly with my image. For that matter, I can use a lens correction, no sorry, I can use Blur, I can use Lens Blur and here on the radius, I can play a little bit with the radius something like that, it's too much or it could be fine. And once again, I add a mask and I can remove that from my foreground and leave all the blur effect on my background.

For this, I can always use a Zdepth pass, but this I will cover in my yeah, next tutorials. This goes much, much more easier and much more faster to you. So, I merge down my image and duplicate it one more time. And the next thing, I want to do is to add, a little bit more photo look for my image like the photograph still. So I can use the lens correction here and I can add a little bit, fish eye look like the camera's look. And I can add a little bit more of chromatic aberration and just be careful not overdo it because chromatic aberration appears only when the light meets the object.

So basically, on the sofa and all these places you should not see this. So very carefully edit you can add also Vignette. Vignette is basically lens distortion, that adds a little bit darken, that darken a little bit, your corners. Sometime it will be just fine. And here you can use edge extension, just to fix your edges from the chromatic aberration from not appearing the chromatic aberration. Okay, this looks really fine.

The one of the final things that I want to do, I want to enter more light to my image. So it will mix my background with my foreground, a little bit more better. So here I need to switch again to 8-bit channel and on the 8-bit channel, I have this option of Diffuse Glow. So, you can see here how the lights enter this thing and thus don't have to worry about this light coming all around because we're going to mix it. I'm going to use the layer mask in order to remove it.

And once again, I add the layer mask and I remove this effect from the places I don't want to see it. And I leave it only on the places where the light enters my room, something like that. And of course, by using Opacity I can control the entrance of this light to my image, something like that will be just fine. I'll merge down the image again and duplicate it one more time.

And the last effect is going to be Sharpen. I'm going to add a little bit more Sharpen to my image and as you see here, let me just show you, Bang! my image looks really nice. This is what we got, this is how we started, this is how we end. So this is basically it, this is how you bring really nice colors, really nice color corrections to your image.

It's only takes 10 minutes and it's really useful step by step technique method that I use when I really don't have time to work on my image and add all the pluses. So I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Visit my blog, this was Alex, your VRay Guide, talk soon, bye.

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