Color correction has intertwined itself with photography. Because of the picture we want to take, our camera can’t always provide that in its raw form. To naturalize the photograph you need the color correction tool.
What is a Color Correction?
Simply put, a color correction is a tool to improve the raw photographs by tweaking the color here and there. Its main purpose is to bring out the true essence of your captured photo.
Although you as a photographer are trying to capture the natural image in its raw form, it’s not always the case, right? All you can do is capture the raw image close to its natural form, to minimize the color correction process.
If you don’t know how color correction works, don’t worry, going through the following segment you’ll be able to master the art of color correcting your image.
Why Color Correction Is Important?

As previously mentioned color correction helps you bring out the true essence of your photographs. If you want to make your photos more lifelike and make people mesmerized by them, you’ve to take help from the color correction tool.
Take Photoshop color correction, for instance. When you insert your raw photographs in the photoshop tool and start tweaking them by adjusting the color and making them more natural and lifelike. You can see the difference with your own eyes.
In short, color correction methods give you a second chance to revive your rejected photos. Your color correcting tool is the only way to provide the photograph with your desired look unless you’re happy with the raw captured form.
Color Correction Methods To Change The Photo Effects
With color correction alone you can change your photograph’s effects, saturation, brightness, and other methods to make your image more natural. You can call it your cheat sheet to mesmerize people with your photographs.
We understand how confusing it can get when you open the color correction tool for the first time. You don’t know where to begin and where to finish, right? Well, don’t worry about a thing, we’re here to help.
We’re about to discuss the color correction methods to help you make your photos more lifelike and natural.
Let’s begin, shall we?
Insert The Raw Image
The very first thing you need to do is select a photo that you think needs color correcting. To do so, you need to insert the raw captured image into the color correction tool.
Discover The Problem
Next up, you’ll need to find what’s lacking in the image, is it subject-related or details-related? You can find that out by thoroughly inspecting the photograph. Then you need to discover what changes you want to make in the photograph.
If you have a clear vision of what to change and what not to change, your color correction process will go much smoother.
Place The Target Marker Inside The Dark And Bright Area
Now comes the crucial part where you need to place a marker around the black and white area of your photographs.
To do that- open the curve menu from the color correction tool, go to the channel bar, and you’ll see three options available: Red, Green, and RGB. you need to select the Red channel to set the dark area marker. And to set the bright area marker you need to select the Green channel. You can set the dark and bright markers by adjusting the color threshold.
By dragging the bar downwards you’ll see a dark mark on your photo, you can set the dark marker there and do the same to set the bright marker.
Adjust The Saturation To Intensify The Colors
After that, it’s time to adjust the saturation of your photo. As you’re well aware, your photographs contain lots of hues. By adjusting the saturation you can make it light or strong.
For example, you can make your photo’s sky bluer and the grass greener to give it a dramatic and natural look.
This can only be done by adjusting the color saturation. It helps intensify your image and focus on a specific color. That allows you to provide a natural effect on your photographs.
Change The Temperature To Adapt To The Mood
Photo is all about how you feel when you look at it, right? If you don’t feel something then the photo’s meaning becomes worthless. So while color correcting a photograph you need to keep in mind this crucial factor.
After adjusting the photo’s color saturation you might want to change the color temperature to avoid a disappointing outcome. Change it to warm or cold until it feels right. Because the color temperature depends solely on how it feels when you look at it.
Remove The Target Markers
After you’re done making the proper adjustment and changes to the color saturation and temperature it’s time to remove all the markers from the photographs.
You can do that by using the color sampler tool, which you’ll find in the eyedropper’s drop-down. In the color sampler tool’s dropdown, you can find an option tagged as clear/remove. Click it to remove all the markers from the image.
Changing the Photo Effects by Using Lightroom
We’re about to present a magic trick of color-correcting, and that’s using the lightroom color correction method. It doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie or a pro, with lightroom you’ll be able to color correct your photo with ease.
Just by going through the process of Photo selection> Photo correction> Lightroom> preset selection that’s all it takes to color correct your photo.
If you are new to Lightroom, don’t worry, we’re about to discuss the complete process of using Lightroom to color correct an image.
Let’s begin. Shall we?
- Open Lightroom, you’ll see an import option, click it and it will direct you to the photo directory. You can select one or several photos that you want to color correct.
- After importing the image, you’re now able to color correct your photograph as your heart desires.
- Tweak around with temperature and saturation settings and see which option fits your photo’s color correction.
- You also try on the preset settings that can save up some time. There are several preset settings available in Lightroom. You select either if that’s what you’re looking for.
- If the default presets are not to your liking then you can make your own presets and apply them to your photos.
Final Thoughts
Color correction is an art that everyone should learn even if you’re not a professional photographer. As it’ll come in handy with providing your photos with a personal touch. Not only that, you can illuminate the true essence of photography with the color correction method.
Having said that, We’ve tried to cover every aspect of the easy color correction methods. So that you can easily grasp the concept of color correction and its importance in the photography world.
Good luck and have fun editing.
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