114
IMAGE: PHOTODISC
Selective hue and saturation
T
HERE ARE MANY WAYS TO CHANGE
an object’s color in Photoshop, and
we’ve looked at a few of them in this chapter.
One often overlooked method is the Hue/
Saturation dialog – not to reduce saturation
globally or to colorize an image, as is usually
done with this tool, but to adjust selective
colors within a document.
The ability to select broad color ranges
has been in the Hue/Saturation adjustment
for a long time. Photoshop CS4 brought us
the ability to drag directly on our images.
We’ll use the technique to fix this over-
saturated boxer.
2
Click the ‘scrubber’ button at
the bottom left of the dialog, to
activate the direct action tool. When
we now click on the shorts and drag to
the left, all the blues in the image are
desaturated: the pop-up in the dialog
changes automatically to ‘Blues’ to show
what’s happening.
1
One approach would be to open
the Hue/Saturation dialog (Cu
Lu) and reduce the opacity of
the whole image. But this takes all
the color out of the skintones as well,
making the boxer look unappealingly
gray. Fortunately, there is an alternative
within the Hue/Saturation dialog.
4
Image adjustment
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
115
3
When we try the same technique
with the red gloves, however, we
hit a snag. The gloves have desaturated,
certainly; but the skintones have also
been affected. We want to change the
gloves, but to leave the skin intact.
4
At the bottom of the dialog, we
can see what’s going on: the sliders
highlight the range of colors affected
by the operation. By dragging the right
sliders towards the left, we limit the
effect on the more orange end of the
spectrum – which means the skintones
are left alone.
5
If we hold C L while dragging
we’re able to change the hue,
rather than the saturation. Here, we’ve
completed the process by clicking on
the shorts, dragging to change them to
a color more in keeping with the new
glove and trim shade – increasing the
saturation slightly as well.
HOT TIP
The ability to click
and drag directly
on the image
was new to CS4.
But you can still
choose selective
colors from the
pop-up menu in
earlier versions of
Photoshop, and
the ability to limit
and adjust the
affected range –
as we do in step
4 – works in all
versions.
How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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