Photography is a visual art, so the color scheme plays a huge expressive role. Shades influence the atmosphere of the frame, its imaginative content. It is not always suitable for the photographer to use the palette “seen” by the camera. Then various tools and methods of working with color come to the rescue.
What are the reasons for the color change in the photo
During the post-processing phase, the photographer may decide that the color decision needs to be changed. This decision may be for technical or aesthetic reasons.
- White balance correction. Sometimes incorrect camera settings or lighting peculiarities make a photo look too warm (yellow) or too cold (blue). Changing the color allows you to correct the white balance and achieve a more natural tone.
- Styling and aesthetic preferences. Color substitution can be used to create a certain effect or style. Sometimes it is enough to replace even one detail to make the frame play with a new mood. For example, in the photo editor https://retouchme.com/service/color-replacement-app, it is easy to choose a new shade of clothing or other object and get a stunning shot as a result.
- Creating atmosphere. Colors can greatly influence the perception of a shot. During the retouching process, the photographer chooses new shades that will emphasize certain emotions or the theme of the image.
How to change color in a photo editor
In image processing programs, several tools and functions allow you to change the overall palette or the color of individual objects. Most often photographers use some of the following tools.
- Hue/Saturation. You can use this tool to enhance or dim the hue, saturation, and brightness of individual colors in an image or the entire frame.
- Curves. Allows you to fine-tune the tones and contrast of an image, including changing colors by editing the RGB curves.
- Color Replacement. With this tool, you can select a specific color in an image and replace it with another using a variety of selection and adjustment methods.
- Color Balance Correction. Allows you to adjust the properties of an image by changing the levels of red, green, and blue colors.
Many photo editors offer a wide range of filters and presets that can change the colors of images automatically.
The most popular photo editors for working with color are
- Adobe Lightroom includes a wide range of color correction tools, including tone curves, hue/saturation, and white balance.
- VSCO offers many stylized filters that you can customize to your preferences.
- Snapseed has extensive color modification functionality such as tone curves, selective editing, and saturation adjustments.
- Adobe Photoshop allows you to create and edit layer masks, giving you more precise control over your image palette.
- Pixlr contains many filters and tools, including color correction tools.
- GIMP A free editor that provides many color correction tools including tone curves, hue, and saturation levels.
- PicsArt includes a wide variety of presets and effects, including those that change the gamut of a photo and add different color overlays.
Overall, changing the color in a photo is a powerful tool that allows you to achieve artistic goals and produce interesting images with mood and meaning.
To choose the right palette for a shot, you need to understand what mood each color or combination of colors contains, and what associations the viewer will have.
- Warm shades (red, orange, yellow). They create a feeling of coziness and joy. They can also give the image energy and liveliness.
- Cold palette (blues, greens, purples). Transmit a sense of coolness, calmness, and peace, creating an atmosphere of melancholy or mystery, even mysticism. But be careful: some variants of green and blue can look uncomfortable, even painful.
- Saturated shades. Attract attention, make the frame bright, and emotionally rich. They help to convey a sense of joy, excitement or excitement, passion, and other strong emotions.
- Pastel colors. Muted “dusty” palette is the easiest way to create a soft, gentle, calm atmosphere in the frame.
- Monochrome solution. The use of one main color or its shades forms a balanced and stylish frame, in which the author can lay deep meanings.
- Contrast of colors. This palette brings dynamics to the frame, drawing attention to key elements.
In addition, the emotional perception of colors strongly depends on the context, the theme of the photo, and its images.
