How to Change Hair, Skin, Sky and Water Colors in Photoshop

Here's a recent photoshop project where I needed some references for hair and skin colors: the image on the right is the original, at left is the (heavily) photoshopped version.

The first step is being clear on why you want to change colors. Sometimes just getting white balance correct is all you are looking for. This tutorial is for those times you are trying to create a color that is difficult to get from the original (as in the above example), or create a new color completely.

You might simply be experimenting to find something that looks good. For those times (like the shirt in the sample above) you can simply adjust hue, saturation and lightness until it looks right. Another goal is to try to change something to a target color.  I wanted the hair and skin in the photo above to match typical sample colors.

To match to a color, the first step is get color swatch(es) of the color(s) you need. I've assembled a reference image containing hair, skin, sky and water colors you can use at the end of this post (below).

To change existing colors in Photoshop

Again, the simplest method is to select a color range using the Hue/Saturation tool and then adjust the hue slider and mask out any areas you don't want changed. But in areas with complex highlights or shadows (such as hair) this sometimes doesn't work as well as you might prefer.

So either because you want to match a specific color, or for more advanced control, try Jim DiVitale's method instead. First, create three different layers of the same color, and set them to these blending modes and opacities:

1. Top layer: color/50% opacity; Middle layer: overlay/25% opacity; Bottom layer: multiply/10% opacity. Feel free to experiment with different opacity settings. For example, if you're lightening dark hair, change multiply to screen.
   
2. Insert a Hue/Saturation layer as the top layer of the group to give you more subtle control over the look of the new color if you wish.
   
3. Group all these layers and add a mask for the entire group.
   

To change colors, you simply paint on the group mask to reveal or hide color changes! You can also create a second group of a similar color if you want to have slight variations in the color you are applying, or blend both together in a master group mask to average two (or more) colors.

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Make a Photoshop Web Design Template That is Designer and Developer Friendly

There is a great article explaining how to create the layers for a photoshop web design template but they didn't include a sample PSD file to start from.

Here is a Web Design Wireframe Template created in Photoshop CS2 to help you get around the procrastination of creating one for yourself :). Its is based on the layers covered in the article.

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Big list of free photoshop alternatives

Here's a big list of  free photoshop alternatives. Many are online and you can start instantly—no download, no installation. Why should you check out more than one of these if you find one you like? Many have cool and useful features that others don't have, so it's worth doing a little research.

Photoshop Express Online	flauntR	Dumpr
Sumopaint	Pic Resize	Lunapic
Picnik	Pixenate	Aviary
Splashup	FotoFlexer	CinePaint
Artweaver	Phixr	Pixen
GIMP	Kizoa	Krita
Paint.NET	Pixlr	Pixen
Seashore	Picmagick	PhotoFiltre
Photoscape	Pictureful	PaintStar
Inkscape	picture2life	Pixia
PhotoPlus SE	Snipshot	Active Pixels
Phoenix	Flauntr	ChocoFlop
	FaceFilter	Photo Pos Lite
Snipshot	Webpictool

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Website and logo design

Here are a few websites I've designed:

  

  

Here are some logos I've designed:

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Before there was Photoshop, before there was photography, there was artistry

 

Alastair Heseltine

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Why work hard on your photo and quit before you're finished?

I see so many photographs that show evidence of lots of effort, and yet could still use some basic adjustments. Why is that? Take this popular cute bunny and kitten photo making the rounds:

While I understand that some soft focus is cute with furry pets, bringing out the natural contrast and color (and adding a background) doesn't hurt:

And remember, this is just a quick effort from the low-res artifacted JPEG. Just think how nice it could be done from the original. I don't know if the kitten's arm over the bunny is photoshopped, but it looks that way, and the whole image is very carefully staged regardless. Why go to all that work and not finish the image?

Another quick effort on a similar photo:

If you have familiarity with Photoshop shortcuts, this can be done very quickly. A couple of custom shortcuts I use (with Ctrl-Alt-Shift) are X for Unsharp Mask, B for Gaussian Blur, and Z for High Pass Filter, which I usually desaturate and use in linear light blend mode at reduced opacity. X and Z are next to Ctrl-Alt-Shift on the keyboard, so they are very easy to use this way.

For sharpening, I typically blend a HIRLOAM layer with LAB mode lightness channel oversharpening (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E, Alt I-M, Enter, Ctrl-1, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-X, Ctrl-~).

I often take LAB mode changes back to RGB mode, copy merged, and then go back in history before the LAB changes to paste the changes as an adjustment layer (color or luminosity blend modes, typically). Or sharpen the black channel in CMYK and take the CMYK channel into RGB mode in Luminosity blend mode.

For sharpening I will also occasionally use a highpass (sometimes with noise reduction) duplicate layer in linear or hard light on top (reduced opacity, selective masking). For the web I reduce white sharpening halos with a layer style BlendIf lightness adjustment, sometimes selectively masked with a blur or heavy noise-reduction layer.

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Try reverse Déjà Vu for inspiration

What's Reverse Déjà Vu for inspiration? Do something uplifting you've NEVER done before! I'm betting NO ONE has seen ALL of the videos below before. If you have leave a comment with something new for the next visitor. There are some new variations of well-known ones here, but NO WAY have you seen all of these!

New inputs = new inspiration

Why did I put these together? It's important to seek out things to be motivated by, not to just stick to the same inputs, day in and day out. To find new things to lift yourself up, forget all the time-wasters and get energized or just relax deeper than ever before. To remember what you want most out of life, and feel that it can happen.

Sometimes when something inspires you, it feels like remembering something that you've forgotten. Peaceful music and imagery is what often does it for me, that and really cool, gravity or body-defying dance! Here's one of my favorites nature videos to start things off:

Remember the best things you want from life

I hope you find something here that helps you feel and remember the best side of yourself, and remember the best things you want out of life. Hopefully there will be something here you love but have never seen or heard before. (Yeah, I've also got puns, cats, photoshopped and large desktop pics*sigh*)

Links in most cases take you to other popular videos by the same artist, or style of video. All photos below are by me.)

Enjoy!

Oh, and a suggestion: Watch and listen to these here but then watch your favorites in full screen. (How? Click on the YouTube logo in the lower right corner to go the video's main page, and then click on the tiny icon in the lower right to open the video in full screen. Viewing controls at the bottom of your screen, press the Esc key on your keyboard to exit full screen mode.)

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." -Rumi

Okay, this is a viral video ad (Schweppes Burst), but it's great! Slow motion of water balloons bursting, with music. Won me over. Wait for the one that hits the guy in the face

Davy Spillane plays a lament on the Uilleann pipes to Cuchulain composed by Bill Whelan for Riverdance. (Once you've heard this sound, you'll never need to look up the meaning of "lament.")

Ray Lynch, "Celestial Soda Pop" (comments?)

Flowing Sand Art will blow you away. Don't skip this one if you've never seen this kind of artist perform before (comments?) 

Kitaro, "Silk Road." For fans, here's a version of Symphony of the forest (comments?)

Glass Harp on wine glasses (comments?) 

Enya, Watermark Orinoco Flow and May it be are great too! (comments?)

Laughing Baby What a great audience! Thank you, I'm here all week! (comments?)

Saraswa, "Trees" (comments?)

Nessun Dorm by the Three Tenors. You really owe it yourself to hear how it develops--listen to the whole thing and it will bring tears to your eyes. Made popular recently by Paul Potts version (comments?)

Okay, this is straight-up comedy: Tripod, "Make You Happy Tonight." At 1:07 the real meaning of this song comes out. "Turn the lights down low .. it helps me feel like I'm in a spaceship" (comments?)

Tchaikowsky, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Glass Armonica (comments?)

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Free Large Background Desktop Vertical Wallpaper for (Portrait) Monitors

I'm adding new extra-large free wallpapers each month, so be sure to check back!



Recent addition: free vertical extra-large wallpapers that work in both portrait OR landscape mode when rotated, both abstracts and nature images. Most of these can stand having the "ends" cropped if you want to resize them to a ratio other than 16:10 wide screen. If you like these, link to this page so others can find it too!



You might ask: who else uses their monitors in portrait mode? Here's a couple of photos from the Googleplex to give you an idea:



I use a 24" flat panel widescreen (16:10) monitor set to 1920 x 1200 in portrait (vertical) mode. I've tweaked or montaged a number of free images into vertical 16:10 desktop wallpapers in Photoshop. For example, the first image, Eagle Mountain Mist, is a montage of six images, and lots of Photoshop "mist" (you can also see it on Flickr). Some have been rotated to work well vertically. If these are too huge for you, realize Windows can auto-size them for a desktop background. (Here's a great site for completely free images.)

Montages and optimized free images:

Note: These are vertical as shown.

Best of Hubble and the night sky

Note: These are vertical as shown (regardless of original image)

Free Nature Desktop Images: Vertical or Horizontal

Note: these come in a horizontal orientation.

Rotate to vertical as desired in an image program

Free Abstract Wallpaper: Vertical or Horizontal

Note: these come in a horizontal orientation.

Rotate to vertical as desired in an image program

Finding other sources for widescreen vertical wallpapers



Probably the best is interface lift, but Stock Exchange has quite a few to pick through. And there's a big list of links here. Try this useful large image search for popular, large nature wallpapers easily cropped. I can't post any here since they prohibit redistribution.



Graffiti Wallpaper is also excellent. Some of the nature images shown here are simply rotated from Mike Swanson's excellent collection.



If you've ever thought of making 1920 x 1200 wallpapers for your widescreen monitor from online map images, check out Earth Wallpapers.

Sources

Here are the source of some of the montaged and optimized images, in order from first appearing above:

• Eagle Mountain Mist is a montage of several images and lots of photoshopping;
  
  
• Lazy Days II by boss019; April 24th, 2007;
• Neutron Revolver by Parth; November 18th, 2006;
• Peace by Grant Erb; December 15th, 2005--Morfee Lake, Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada;
  
  
• Silence by shiftedreality; May 13th, 2007;
• Epic Falls by Chris Fenison; June 15th, 2006;
• Splash/3D rendered water by Ratow; January 15th, 2006;
• Crepuscule, by Fabien Egot; August 16th, 2007;
• Courage et dévouement (Courage and dedication) Cédric Sacilotto's photo taken with a Canon EOS 400D at f9, 1/200 s; France, copyright 2007;
• Solar Wind effect on Earth's magnetic field: Scaling The Universe;
• Modified from Haleakala Sunrise by Greg Martin;
  
  
• If anyone can help me with the original source of the starry night over golden building (MIT) HDR image, I'd be grateful;
• The rest are adaptations of classic Hubble Space Telescope photos from a variety of sources.

Photoshop optimization techniques include HIROLAM, LAB color adjustments, BlendIF layer styles to reduce white halos after sharpening, etc.

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