Selective Color, aka my #1 Most-Used Photoshop Setting
Ok so before I begin I’m stuck doing this on mobile (god help me) & without access to Photoshop at the moment, so there might not be too many pictures to help guide you & I’m 100% limited to my memory :s But I’m gonna make this guide anyways!!
(@ladymaysworld if you’re reading this, hi I finally made this for you <3<3<3 have fun making up your own settings!!)
So at its most basic selective color allows you to selectively alter a specific color, be it by oversaturating it, removing it from the image, or changing it to a different color (but within certain limits; hue and saturation allows you to change colors more freely). This is the setting that’s used in those “black and white photograph except for this one object in color” pictures. And it’s found in virtually every psd on this website, which is why it’s strange to me how taken for granted / just how plain unknown it is within editing & gifmaking circles.
This is how your setting options look in Photoshop. The picture on the left shows the color settings split into cyan, magenta, yellow, and black or CMYK (the same colors used for ink printing). The picture on the right shows the color channels, and each channel contains the CMYK color settings within them.
Pro-tip: you can use one (1) whole selective color layer to target multiple colors. You do not need to use a new layer for each color unless you are trying to specifically alter that one color yet again. I cannot stress how confused I am seeing psds use multiple selective color layers when one would have done it all.
As for as color channels go, they’re very straightforward and Exactly What They Say On The Tin. But it’s very helpful to remember that:
Whites target the lightest shades of the picture. In terms of lighting, this would be your highlights. Changing this setting is useful for animations that have deteriorated colors (i.e. the whites of eyes and white clothes look yellow) and can be used to alter light tones that shine on a person’s skin.
Neutrals target the bulk of your image’s colors, the midtones. This is the setting you’ll want to change if a color filter has been used on your image. This is also the setting (specifically a -40 or lower on the neutrals black) that people use to make pastel edits but please use with caution on images and gifs of people of color because it will wash everything out including skin tones.
Blacks target the darkest colors of your image, the shadows. You can add a nice amount of contrast using a simple +10 on the black blacks.
As far as how to correct for color filters (as kpop music videos love to use them, to say nothing of snow filters and vlive filters), I personally start small with my numbers (+10 for an increase and -5 for a decrease) and add as needed. (I keep my increase & decrease values different because leaving them equal would change nothing in the end)
Magenta filter: increase the neutrals yellow, decrease neutrals magenta
Yellow filter: increase the neutrals magenta, decrease neutrals yellow
Cyan filter: increase the neutrals red, decrease neutrals cyan
Red filter: increase the neutrals cyan, decrease neutrals red
And yes these do utilize the complementary (opposite) color relationship according to the RGB (red, blue, green) color model but to an extent because yellow and magenta aren’t exact opposites so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Basically in order to cancel out and correct a color filter, you must use its opposite color
And I feel the need to stress: if you are editing for kpop, no one would ever make an idol look too yellow so it shouldn’t be okay to make them look too red or too pink. Please keep this in mind when creating your color settings or altering someone else’s. Reds, pinks/magentas, and yellows should be kept equal when you are done correcting for a color filter as all shades make up a person’s skin tone.
Now as far as the CMYK colors go, the number values (either positive or negative), will alter how a color channel displays. You can think of it this way: positive (+) values add the CMYK hue to the color channel creating a more saturated, darker color and negative (-) values subtract the CMYK hue, lightening the color, and creates the opposite color regardless of the color channel used. So:
Positive value=darker color (more saturated, CMYK tones added)
Negative value=brighter color (more vibrant yet CMYK tones will be removed, colors are lightened)
(Image taken from myphotocentral; they also have an article on selective color but I don’t entirely agree with their assessment of how selective color works :s but hey I could be wrong for all I know. My knowledge of selective color is 100% trial and error + observation)
These negative selective color settings all create a vibrant hue of the opposite color, lightens the tones it subtracts, and will make the resulting color pop, so you should be careful with how strong you make the setting unless you are purposefully going for a distorted colors edit. For example, -100% cyan red will make an idol appear far too red rather than adding a red-orange tint to their skin tone as most people’s intentions are and the result is very jarring. So please keep the number variable in mind & test with smaller numbers before committing to a -70% or higher setting. It’s okay to test how the settings look at their extremes (i.e. -100% or +100%) but you should test other numbers after getting a feel for how the color setting works.
+5 on black neutrals will add contrast to the overall image
+10 on black blacks will add a more subtle contrast
If I’m trying to create my own setting to restore skin tones, I add a +5/+10 to the yellow yellows and red reds
If things look too yellow, use a negative magenta setting on the yellow channel
If your clip swaps between warm (red & yellow) and cool (blue & magenta) lighting use a channel mix and edit the blue mix to decrease blues but increase yellows (but you will lose your magenta values this way so say goodbye to any pinks & purple-red tones; reds themselves will still be there so skin tones will stay intact but if someone has pink hair or clothes they’ll look more red than magenta)
Use a layer mask in addition to a selective color setting to target specific parts of the image instead of the whole (i.e. erasing a pastel color setting from an idol’s skin so their skin tone isn’t washed out)
Okay so if you’ve just read through all that congrats! You know the basics of selective color. Now go forth and enjoy the best setting Adobe ever created~
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