{"id":995,"date":"2010-02-03T12:42:47","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T20:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/03\/photoshop-tutorial-neutral-grays\/"},"modified":"2018-09-09T19:32:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T03:32:52","slug":"photoshop-tutorial-neutral-grays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/03\/photoshop-tutorial-neutral-grays\/","title":{"rendered":"Photoshop Tutorial – Neutral Grays"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got a Photoshop question from Lynne in Iowa, a dear friend for many years.\u00a0 She asked how you could adjust an area of an image to make it pure white.\u00a0 I gave her a quick email response that outlined a technique but the question really deserves a more detailed and complete answer.\u00a0 So, Lynne, this is for you and anyone else who encounters this situation in Photoshop.<\/p>\n

In this Photoshop tutorial I am going to show you how to make this correction using an adjustment layer.\u00a0 This technique actually applies to two situations that are encountered quite often \u2013 getting neutral blacks and neutral whites.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take just a moment to describe what is meant by \u2018neutral\u2019 blacks or whites.\u00a0 On our computers, colors are represented by three numbers; e.g., 0,0,0 or 128,128,128 or 255,255,255.\u00a0 Each of these numbers tells how much red, green and blue are combined together to make a color.\u00a0 The first set \u2013 0,0,0 \u2013 describes pure black \u2013 no color.\u00a0 The last set \u2013 255,255,255 \u2013 describes pure white (that\u2019s a little bit of a white lie but not important enough to launch off on to a tangent).\u00a0 The middle set would be a shade of neutral gray.\u00a0 Because each of the three numbers is the same, the resulting color is neutral; that is, no color cast\u00a0 A black with a hint of red might look like this \u2013 5,0,0.<\/p>\n

The reason for dipping into this brief technical discussion of computers and colors is because the three numbers that describe a color are at the heart of this technique.\u00a0 We will adjust the three colors in an area that is supposed to be a neutral shade of gray so that they are all the same.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s use an example.\u00a0 This is an image I took from my back yard on a morning when the full moon was setting.\u00a0 There was a beautiful earth shadow and the moon is descending though some thin, pink clouds.\u00a0 We know the moon should be white and in fact it looks white.\u00a0 But we will first check to make sure and if not, adjust it to neutral white.<\/p>\n

\"Neutral<\/a><\/p>\n

The first step is to determine the actual color of the moon.\u00a0 To do that we will select the Color Sampler Tool from the tool bar.<\/p>\n

\"Color<\/a><\/p>\n

A click on the moon leaves a little target that gives us a sample of the color a that spot which is also recorded in the Info box.<\/p>\n

\"Sampled<\/a><\/p>\n

The Info box tells us the color for sample #1 is 239,219,208.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a bit red because the red number is higher than both the green and blue numbers.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s not all that surprising because the moon is behind a pink cloud.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to use the Levels adjustment to make the moon neutral white.\u00a0 We start by adding a Levels adjustment layer and naming it \u201cLevels White Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Levels<\/a><\/p>\n

One feature of the Levels adjustment that often goes overlooked is the fact that we can also adjust the red, green and blue channels.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u00a0 Recall that the red channel had the highest number \u2013 239.\u00a0 We will adjust the green and blue channels to bring their lower numbers up to red.\u00a0 We do that by selecting the green and blue channels one by one and sliding the white triangle slider down while watching the numbers in the Info box.\u00a0 Here, let\u2019s try it.\u00a0 Select Green from the drop down and start sliding the white slider to the left.<\/p>\n

\"Green<\/a><\/p>\n

First, notice in the Info bar that for color sample point #1 there are two numbers \u2013 the original numbers on the left and the adjusted numbers on the right.\u00a0 The adjusted green number is now the same as the red \u2013 239.\u00a0 In the Levels dialog the white slider has been reduced from 255 to 234.\u00a0 That was the amount of adjustment that was required to raise the green number to 239.\u00a0 We now repeat the process for the blue channel.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a><\/p>\n

You can see by the three numbers in the Info box that our moon is now neutral white.\u00a0 The red cast has been completely removed.<\/p>\n

We should probably point out that this technique is a global adjustment;\u00a0 that is, the color change is not limited to just the moon but affects the whole image.\u00a0 To make it a little easier to see, here are the before<\/strong> and after<\/strong> images side-by-side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"neutral_white_0\"<\/a><\/td>\n\"neutral_white_final\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Before<\/td>\nAfter<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The after<\/strong> image is a bit cooler than the before<\/strong>.\u00a0 You may decide that you really like something that is in between the two.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s easy enough to do.<\/p>\n

In the Layers palate, each adjustment layer has an Opacity setting and by default it is set to 100%.\u00a0 This means the full effect of the adjustment is applied to the image.\u00a0 But if you would rather have some fraction of the adjustment applied, say 50%, you can change the Opacity setting.<\/p>\n

\"Opacity<\/a><\/p>\n

As we stated at the start, this technique can also be used to set neutral blacks.\u00a0 You just use the Color Sampler Tool to mark a spot in the shadows.\u00a0 The rest is the same.<\/p>\n

Let us know if you find this technique helpful.\u00a0 Or maybe you have a different way of getting neutral grays.\u00a0 If so, if you don\u2019t mind sharing it, please do so.<\/p>\n

To see more of my photographs click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Join me on an upcoming workshop.<\/a><\/p>\n

(1426)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On how to adjust an area of a photograph to a neutral shade of black, gray or white.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,272],"tags":[13,270,10],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-how-to-articles","category-photoshop-how-to-articles-articles","tag-photography","tag-photoshop-tutorial","tag-ralph-nordstrom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-g3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3954,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}