Behind the scenes – changing colours in Photoshop

One of the the themes in the 52 frames project was to use complementary colours. For extra credit we had to use the Pantone colour of the year 2022 “very Peri”. To accurately show this colour in my image I had to spend some time changing colours in photoshop.

Changing colours

I decided to have a play with some surrealism and make some fantasy looking images for the challenge this week. Finding the colour very peri naturally in the world was going to prove difficult. Therefore, I decided it would be easier to incorporate it into other subjects. It was time to get creative!

The images above was actually relatively easy to create. Firstly, I captured a self portrait. I knew I wanted a close up as I wanted to turn my eye purple!

The next stages was to make minor adjustments to the image, adding contrast and tweaking texture and clarity. I am not normally one for smoothing out my skin in my self portraits. However, as I was creating an alien like creature I decided it would work for this image.

I then added a new layer, and filled it with the Very Peri tone of purple. The blend mode was changed to “colour” and masked out the areas I didn’t want to be purple.

Next, I added another layer and filled this with yellow which is a complementary colour to purple. Again I masked out areas that I didn’t want to be yellow.

Finally, I added some dodging and burning and colour toning using LUTs to pull the image together.

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Sara Sadler

Photographer

I am a fine art photographer based in the South of England. I enjoy sharing my photographic adventures, hints and tips.

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