Matching colors (was: Help combining / changing color palettes of various photos...)

[hydropyr]

Good day to all graphics lovers.

I would like to learn how to change the color palette and brightness of one photo to match another. For example I have combined these 2 photos and I would like the palette and brightness of the sand and sky of the left photo to match the right one (Or vice versa).




Is there a fast and easy way to do this, or is photoshop the only way?
I have photoshop CS6 which I only know the very basics. However I’m not a graphics designer, nor do I have any experience with photoshop.

So what are the steps and specific tools to accomplish this? Perhaps a youtube video that guides you step by step?

Once I learn the basics of how to do this, I’ll process various other photos in similar manner.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[agentmoeller]

Welcome Hydro. An easy, quick way would be first a hue/saturation adjustment layer, making the bland sky on the left bluer. Thank probably a color adjustment layer, adding more yellow on the slider to give the tan sand a deeper yellow color. See if that works.

 

[chrisdesign]

1. Make a duplicate of the right image part you want to make lighter. Put it on a new layer.


2. On a curves adjustment layer lighten the image.


3. On a color adjustment layer put in these values.


4. This is what you get.

 

[Tom Mann]

As usual, in PS, there are often many different ways to achieve similar results. Here's a completely different approach from Chris'. This approach is good if you do not have a finely developed sense of color and so you can simply move sliders around by eye to get the best match. This approach is a more "by-the-numbers" method.

A second difference is that I interpreted the request to be, "adjust the LHS to match the RHS", whereas Chris interpreted it the opposite way.

Finally, I should point out that the LH image has almost no vignetting, whereas the RH image has severe vignetting (darkening) in the corners of the image. If you are going to attempt to match two images, it would be vastly preferable if such effects were the same in both pix. Accordingly, I made a very quick and dirty attempt to introduce some vignetting into the LH image to match the vignetting in the RH image.

The main "matching" technique that I used was to use the ability to enter "before" and "after" numerical values into one or more points on each channel of a curves adjustment layer.

I started by developing masks to separate your LH image into two areas - the sand and the sky -- so that I could put them on separate layers and make separate adjustments to each.

Next, I used the eyedropper tool (very large sampling radius) to measure the RGB values in the various areas. Here's what I got:

Sand:
LHS orig
192, 148, 110 (ie, "before" values)

RHS = LHS desired
197, 139, 48 (ie, "after" values)


Sky:

LHS orig
165,176, 198 (ie, "before" values)

RHS = LHS desired
118, 153,201 (ie, "after" values)

Then, I made two curves adjustment layers, one masked for the LHS sand, the other masked for the LHS sky. For both of these, I went through each of the three channels, clicked roughly in the middle of each curve to add an adjustment point and then entered the before and after values for that channel. Here are the values being entered for the blue channel of the sand on the LHS.




My final step was to quickly add some vignetting to the LHS to roughly match the existing vignetting in the RH image.

The result is attached below.

HTH,

Tom M