Brightening the Hazy Shades of Winter

Fixing the sky and landscape

Just because it's drab and dreary outside, doesn't mean your photos have to match. Take this picture my friend J took of Shawn and I while out riding recently. It's a nice picture but it'd be so much better if the sky were a pretty blue, and if the landscape wasn't so, well, BLAH. Unfortunately sometimes, as with this particular image, normal color correction techniques just don't help. When that happens, it's good to know other methods of snapping color back into place, such as the ones I'll show you today.

Join me now as we go on a journey of duplicating layers and changing their blending mode, plus we'll throw in a little magic with a hidden tool called Color Replacement. With these tools, Elements makes our task a walk in the sunniest of parks. Let's get started!

Crop it

The very first thing I want to do is crop the photo. Cropping photos to the subject matter makes for a more visually pleasing photo. Besides, nobody cares about the dreary grass, gravel, or our feet; so, it's best to get rid of them.

Step 1: Press C to select the Crop tool and draw a box around the subject matter, like so:

Adjust the handles as you like, and press Return to accept the crop. TIP: If you're cropping for a specific size frame enter those dimensions in the Options toolbar at the top of your screen in the width and height boxes. Include the unit of measurement (i.e. "4 in").

Bring out the hidden color

Step 2: Choose Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels, or just press Command + L (PC: Ctrl + L).

Step 3: In the resulting dialog box, move the white triangle at the far right (representing highlights) toward the left until it meets the information in the histogram (a visual representation of the pixel data of the image--looks like an alien mountain range). Next, drag the middle gray triangle (representing the midtones) toward the right just a bit and press OK. This is a great trick for increasing the contrast of a dreary image.

Step 4: Create an adjustment layer by clicking the half white/half black circle at the top of the Layers Palette. Select Levels and immediately press OK. We're creating this adjustment layer *only* to use the layer mask that tags along with it.

Step 5: Create a duplicate of the Background layer by selecting it in the Layers Palette and pressing Command + J (PC: Ctrl + J). Drag the copy to the top of the layers stack and change the blend mode to Multiply. This will deepen and oversaturate all the colors in the whole image. This isn't exactly what we want, but we'll fix it with the layer mask in the next two steps.

Step 6: Group the two layers together by pressing the Option key as you hover your cursor between the layers. When the cursor turns into two intersecting circles (circled in red below) click the mouse button. You'll see a tiny, downward pointing arrow appear in the Background copy layer to denote that it's grouped with the Levels adjustment layer below it.

Step 7: Press B to grab the Brush tool and press X until black is the topmost color chip in the toolbar on the far left of your screen (shown at left below). Back in the Layers Palette, select the layer mask thumbnail (circled below in red, at right).

Step 8: With the brush, paint the areas you do not want oversaturated. I painted Shawn, myself, and the bike, leaving the sky and landscape alone.

Step 9: With my mask complete, the photo is starting to look better. Though, I could improve it even more by duplicating the Multiply layer a couple of times. This will build up even more color. Do this by dragging it up to the New Layer icon at the top of the Layers Palette, as shown below.

Each time you duplicate the Multiply layer, the colors get darker. TIP: You can always lighten the effect slightly by lowering the Opacity of one of the duplicated Multiply layers.

Replace dreary with cheery!

Next, let's see if we can brighten up the sky even more by using the Color Replacement tool (actually it's a brush). With this tool we can paint over a target color with a completely different color.

Step 10: Select the Color Replacement tool, nestled snuggly inside Brushes tool in the Toolbox.

Step 11: Press and hold the Option key (PC: Alt), and select a nice blue color in the sky; not the brightest blue, but something near it. The cursor will change into an eyedropper (as shown below). This sets the replacement color.

Step 12: Begin to paint over the gray areas of the sky; the target color. Now, every gray that passes under your Brush cursor will change to the brighter blue. NOTE: The first color you touch with this brush becomes the target color, so choose wisely, dear grasshopper ;)

See how the gray is being wiped away above? Below is our before and after. Notice how my hair was not affected by the Color Replacement tool at all:

Quite the difference, 'eh? Thanks to J for taking the shot, and thanks to Elements for making it so easy to fix. See you next time!