Turn Brown Water Blue

[mycroft007]

So I did a Trash the Dress shoot in Lake Houston. Which is brown. That isn't so pretty. In some of my images I was able to use select color range to create a layer mask for the brown water and turn it green. But in this one and others like it I can't seem to make it work. Either too much of the dress gets selected or the water covering the dress doesn't get selected.

Anyone have any tricks for doing this? Feel free to edit this jpeg, but you have to tell me how to do it.

[the-beholder]

Okies, this is what i came up with. Not sure if this looks like natural blue water but its passable. I did this in a hurry so i'm sure theres still some parts of the photo that look slightly brown, but i can do a more professional job later if you like. =)



What i did :

Adjusted levels, adjusted color balance-gave it more blue and more green, more red.

then added a layer, set it to color, opacity 26, fill 86. and filled in a light greeny blue color.
erased where her head and dress it so there aren't blue in those areas

created another layer, set mode to color, opacity 45 and added a darker blue over top with the paint brush with that opacity of 59.


hope i helped !! =)

[temp guest]

Originally Posted by the-beholder

Okies, this is what i came up with. Not sure if this looks like natural blue water but its passable. I did this in a hurry so i'm sure theres still some parts of the photo that look slightly brown, but i can do a more professional job later if you like. =)



What i did :

Adjusted levels, adjusted color balance-gave it more blue and more green, more red.

then added a layer, set it to color, opacity 26, fill 86. and filled in a light greeny blue color.
erased where her head and dress it so there aren't blue in those areas

created another layer, set mode to color, opacity 45 and added a darker blue over top with the paint brush with that opacity of 59.


hope i helped !! =)

wow, thats good stuff

[AdamN]

Here is my qucik and dirty rendition:
*First, I always duplicate the background layer(original image) so that I know what I have to compare it to.
*I bumped up the red saturation just a touch to help make the skin tone appear more natural(personal touch).
*Now create a new layer and change the layer style from normal to color. This will allow you to 'paint' on a diferent color without harming the original.
*I then selected roughly all the background with a polygonal lasso tool. Once the area was selected, I added a feather to it so there weren't any sharp edges.
*In the new blank layer, I added a dark blue/light blue gradient in the selected area to give it the blue tint. I then worked with the eraser in some area's like the arm to get rid of the overflowing blue. And for the bride's vail, I used blue but took the opacity to 50% so that it would appear like the water was behind it.

Hope that helps.

[mycroft007]

Thanks Adam. I'll give that a try.

[huxley]

ok here are my two versions... litterally 5 min worth of work. all i did was adjust the levels a bit. and then i used a curves adjustment layer in BLUE mode .... have like four choices. red, blue, and green... and all together. in the curves dialog box i clicked a point right in the middle and dragged it directly down until i was comfortable with the blue color. then i used a photo filter (cooling LLB) at 50% density. on this layer i then went and masked the areas that i thought were to strong (i.e. face and skin). i didnt know if i liked the dress blue or more natural so i am posting both. my masks are not as clean as i would like but then i only spent 5 min on them. it is bed time you know... hope you like my take... good luck

huxley

[jeffkohn]

Changing the water blue without it looking fake or screwing up the overall color balance is beyond my PS skills. But one other alternative you might want to consider is a B/W conversion.

[mycroft007]

Huxley:

I think I like the dress white. The problem is really where the dress is under the water or you see the water through the veil. There you have to choose to take the brown out, or the color of the dress.

Thanks.

Ron

[mycroft007]

Jeff:

It thought about going B&W, and with this image in particular I may because it has so much brown, but to me it loses a lot of impact in B&W.

Ron

[zach-e2]

the-beholder,

i think you're on a great start. i'd just touch up a little underneath the armpits and in small areas like that. your colours are definitely the most realistic!
keep up the good work

peace.
z

[Jezebel]

this is what i came up with after playing around a little. i tried to lessen the brown appearance of the image without making the girl look like a complete blueberry and without having a stark contrast between the cool colors of the water vs the warmer colors of her skin (even though I went with a cooler color palette overall). I brightened the image to soften the contrast, I increased the blue tones of the image, I desaturated the image overall to soften the look.

[DJ.]

I gave it a whirl. I took only a couple of minutes in CS3. Deciding what shade to make the water took the most time. I isolated everything but the water. Created a selective color layer using the previous layer as a knockout and I adjusted only on Neutral.

[LoungeLizard]

This is why all photos shot at Galveston are sepia toned! LOL

[Roadrnr]

Personally, I like to duplicate the background layer, then on the new layer do a hue/saturation adjustement. Click colorize and adjust the hue slider to the color (blue) you want, play with the saturation and lightness to taste. Then hit ok and turn it into a mask and brush everything you don't want to be blue out.

Its a quick little down and dirty technique that I learned from the famous Daniel Bates