This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Matching Color
Color matching is important when compositing images. If the color temperature is off or color casts appear in one or the other images, the composite will obviously be a fake image. Your task when compositing photos is to create the most realistic looks.
Quite often, you can use the same steps for adjusting brightness and contrast, and the color may balance between two images in a composite photo.
I took one photo and added a subject from another photo to create a composite, as shown in Figure 8.27.
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FIGURE 8.27 Subject added to a background image.
I copied the subject to the background image and duplicated the subject. I added a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and brought the Saturation slider to the left to –100 to create a black-and-white copy of the subject image.
I then added a Levels Adjustment Layer and sampled black, white, and midtones in the background image and clipped the layer. Before you sample tones, be certain to open the Tool Options panel for the Eyedropper tool and choose either 3x3 or 5x5 in the Point Sample area of the Tool Options.
After I hid the black-and-white layer, the subject color match looked fairly close to the color in the background, as you can see in Figure 8.28.
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FIGURE 8.28 A close color match between two photos in a composite image.
If the brightness adjustment isn’t quite right, you can use a very fast and easy adjustment for creating color balance by first duplicating the background. Move the background to the top of the layer stack.
Since you don’t need the black-and-white layer anymore, you can delete it to make it easier to see before and after adjustments. Click the black-and-white layer, press Alt/Option, and click the Delete icon in the Layers panel to delete the layer. Likewise, you can delete the Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer.
Select the top layer (the duplicate of the Background layer) and choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. In the Gaussian Blur dialog box, move the Radius slider far to the right. You want to blur enough to show some distinction in the colors but no detail.
Select the Blur layer and choose Color from the blending modes drop-down list.
You should always adjust brightness and contrast first when trying to color match photos.
As a last edit, flatten the layers or press Ctrl/
+ Alt/Option + Shift + E to create a composite layer and retain all layers in case you want to make any additional edits.