A Photoshop Take on Spot Colour – Mark Pedlar

Just adding to Judy Sara and Di Gage’s article on how to achieve spot colour, here is how I achieved it in Photoshop using the same image.

We start at the same point with a shot of the gate to Baddesley Clinton, an Elizabethan moated manor house in UK.

PS - 1

First move is to correct the perspective. In this case there are several options in Edit/Transform that will do the job. I selected Transform/Distort as I wanted to pull the verticals out a different amount on either side of the tower. I also dragged the left-hand side corner up to level the turrets. The accuracy of your levelling can be checked by going to View/Show/Grid. The grid superimposed on the image will allow fine tuning.

PS -2

Next create a duplicate layer – Layer/Duplicate Layer. You can see that there are two layers shown in the window to the right above and we are working on the top one – Duplicate. Now go to Image/Adjustments/Black and White and we can see the Duplicate/Mono layer. We also get the chance at this stage to modify the influence each colour channel has on our mono layer. The slider positions shown are all defaults but all can be altered to taste and the result is immediately visible on the image.

PS - 3a

Having zoomed in on the doorway above I’ve used the magnetic lasso from the left-hand tools panel and outlined the entrance to the garden. In the right-hand image, I’ve first turned off the background layer of the original. You can see its eye’ on the right is blank. Then I’ve used the eraser, again from the left-hand tool panel so we can easily make sure we’ve erased all of the mono garden.

PS -4

PS -5

Zoom back out to view the whole image. Make sure the background layer is highlighted on the right and enhance brightness, contrast and saturation of the garden through the doorway.

PS -6

Finally visit both layers and make final adjustments to contrast and brightness.