11.03.2009

Tutorial Tuesday - Exact Color Matching

I've made a decision. I'm going to start Tutorial Tuesdays all over again! Yay! Now that I am no longer RS president, I will have a little more time to focus on developing a new tutorial each week. This week we'll be learning how to make an exact color match!

Have you ever been designing a digi scrapbook page, website element, cards, or even something ti print for a paper craft when you are trying to match an element to an exact color from your photo or something? What about if you want to use 2 elements from different digital kits and you want the colors to coordinate perfectly? How do you do that? I'll show you. You'll be amazed how easy it is!

For our example, I'll be using PSE 5.0 and I'll be changing a digital paper from Houseof3's Ooh La La kit to match the color of my daughter's shirt in one of our recent family self-portraits!

1. Open your photo or paper that you want to pick a color from. I chose this family photo. (File > Open).


2.  Click on the foreground color box on your lower left hand side of the screen to choose a color from your photo. A box like this will pop up and your cursor will become an ink dropper. Now you can click on a color from anywhere on your photo and it will make that exact color your foreground color.


3. Now open the digital paper or element that you want to recolor. I chose this beautiful ledger paper from the Ooh la la kit. And while I love the paper, it doesn't quite match the colors in the photo.


4. In elements, click on Enhance >Adjust Color > Adjust Hue/Saturation. This might be a little different in different versions of Photoshop. You are looking for the Hue/Saturation adjustment. You can use the keyboard shortcut of "Ctrl+U" if you'd like.


5. When the Hue/Saturation screen pops up, all you will do is simply click the box next to "Colorize". The program will automatically use the foreground color you chose earlier to change the document to that exact shade! Cool!!


6. You can now play with the saturation slider to get the look you like. I wanted my paper a little more saturated, so I dragged the slider to the right until it hit 70. Voila!



7. I added my photo, and now the already beautiful paper matches my daughter's shirt exactly. Can you imagine how many times you'll be able to use this in your photoshop creations? Nice!



So, what are you itching to learn? Digital scrapbooking tips? Photo editing? Tell me what you want to learn and I'll make a tutorial! Email me with your questions and if you have a fun photoshop tip, please share!

8 comments:

amy w. said...

As always, I LOVE your tutorials. Did I miss something? When did you get released?

Also, the tutorial that I used that saved my life was the brightening shadowy parts of pictures. Does that make sense hahah! Thanks again!

Me said...

I love this!!!!!!!! I find these to be SO helpful and u do a great job of explaining! I stumbled upon your site and I am so glad I did! I would love to have a tutorial on photo editing!

Frolicking Night Owl said...

Ahhh! Thanks!! I was just designing a b-day invitation for my daughter last week and felt very limited by the colors of my embellishments. Good to know all that is so easy to change! Looking forward to more tutorials!!

angie said...

thanks so much, i love your tutorials! i only wish you did them in CS3 as that is what i have...i seem to figure it out though!
thanks!

Mari said...

This is awesome! I'll have to give it a shot... soon, promise!
What I'd really, really like for a tutorial is how to make a *realistic* looking torn edge in PSE. I've followed the directions that I could find, but... it just looks AWFUL!
So please, please teach me how! :)

Mary said...

Who knew it would be that easy. Thank you for making this tutorial.

Mary

Anonymous said...

Is is necessary to have a color calibrated monitor for accurate photo editing?

Jody said...

Great tutorial as always! I have a photography question that I am hoping you can help with. Which is the best light to photograph babies to get the "milky skin" effect?