Yellow / Orange spots

[Lawmans3]

This photo has a bunch of yellow/orange spots. I have been able to get a clean copy mixing the channels but i seem to lose the color. I'd like to hear what a good way to do it by keeping the color and not turning the photo into a b&w. Thanks!

http://i532.photobucket.com/albums/e.../sisters_4.jpg

[TommyO]

Here is one suggestion, as there are many methods.

When the spots are small like these, I tend to use a method involving three basic steps. ( I would use a different technique if the spot was larger.)

(a) sample the offending color using a single point sample;
(b) determine the opposite color values (those that negate it);
(c) apply an adjustment layer, invert the mask, then paint the spots out.

• So, I sampled a representative pixel, yielding R:150, G:119, B:55.
• I opened a Selective Color adjustment layer and entered the following values: Yellows> 0, 0, -100, 0; Reds>100, -100, -100, 0. This was done by both knowledge of the color values and by eye.
• I inverted the mask (making it all black).
• I then used a small, 50% hardness, 100% opacity brush, set to white, and painted on the mask. You can set it a smidge larger than the spot and just click each once or twice. Zoom in close, and just follow a pattern left to right around the image.

Again, a bit slower than some methods, but works great. Just lower the opacity on darker areas (hair), and use full opacity on similar areas (drawers).

[Lawmans3]

TommyO,

Thanks for the suggestion! I followed what you said except you lost me on selecting the color values. Is there an easy way to do this? If you select a portion of the orange color, how do you know what number to put in that will get rid of it. It would be really easy if you could just put in negative numbers and then it would be just the opposite but the value has to be 0 to 255.

[lurch]

Another method (Tommy did say there were many):

On examination of the channels, I saw that the yellow spots were pretty much absent in the red but very prominent in the blue. Used calculations to subtract the red (image detail) from the blue (image + spots), leaving mostly spots. Actually what I did was add the inverse of the red to the blue, fiddling with the offset and scale until I got a good image of black spots. Inverted that and applied a very steep curve to increase the contrast, yielding a spot mask.

Once that was done (and it was faster to do than to write about), it was easy to suppress all the spots in one swell foop. Command-clicked on the mask channel to load it as a selection, then added a hue/saturation adjustment layer, which automatically had the spot mask for a layer mask. Desaturated yellows and reds and adjusted lightness for each to make the spots disappear - almost. That left a little orange showing here and there, so I added another adjustment layer, selective color this time, and adjusted the components of the neutral tones just a bit to suppress those spots. The whole operation took about five minutes.

There's still color correction and touchup to do, of course.

[TommyO]

I think Lurch's method was great, just wish I had taken the time to look at the channels.

To answer your question, one easy way of remembering opposing colors is the RGB vs CMYK trick. RGB are additive primaries and CMY are subtractive. Hence, they are opposites.... in other words, Red is opposite Cyan, Green opposite Magenta, Blue opposite Yellow.

If you have a red color cast in an image, you can reduce Red or add Cyan... and so on.

So, in the Selective Color panel, it was easy to work with CMYK values as our target was mostly Yellow. Thus the first choice of targeting Yellows with 0, 0, -100, 0 (meaning reduce yellow value by -100% within yellows).

While looking at the chest of drawers, I also went to the Reds to reduce any yellow value (which is where I got the x, x, -100, x) value there). But, I also tweaks the C & M values by eye to see their effect, trying to match the nearest neighbors. So, the 100, -100, x, x were just a stab. This could vary depending on what part of the image your working on.

Again, it's often experimentation. Had I taken my time, maybe I would have seen Lurch's observation and saved a lot of time.

[Lawmans3]

[QUOTE=lurch;210163]Another method (Tommy did say there were many):

On examination of the channels, I saw that the yellow spots were pretty much absent in the red but very prominent in the blue. Used calculations to subtract the red (image detail) from the blue (image + spots), leaving mostly spots. Actually what I did was add the inverse of the red to the blue, fiddling with the offset and scale until I got a good image of black spots. Inverted that and applied a very steep curve to increase the contrast, yielding a spot mask.

QUOTE]

I've never used the calculations to subract anything. I would imagine you have explained this before somewhere. Can you point me in the right direction? This looks like a great method to have in my bag of tricks.

[0lBaldy]

Another of many ways..
copy background
levels
new layer.. color mode
select color next to spot to remove... paint spot with soft brush
Hue/Saturation layer remove greenish color
new layer with Shft+Ctrl+Alt+E to combine all layers into new
Ctrl+J copy layer
Polaroid dust and scratch remover.. ( black first.. hide all mask painted white over black spots)
Merge Down
Polaroid dust and scratch remover.. ( White.. hide all mask painted white over white spots)
Imagenomic Noiseware.. Remove noise and sharpen some (masked)

[Kraellin]

clone, color balance, hue/sat and a little push/smudge.

[chillin]

On some of the bigger spots selective colors + curves work OK. The small spots & scratches could be removed with the spot healing brush.

[swarbees]

I decided to fix the spots with channels and then add the color back in. I saved the original color information in a different file and then added that back in as a layer set to color. This brought the orange back but it was easy to paint out the orange with the correct color. Then I addressed noise with Neat image and healing for the bigger spots that were left----

[Lawmans3]

Originally Posted by swarbees

I decided to fix the spots with channels and then add the color back in. I saved the original color information in a different file and then added that back in as a layer set to color. This brought the orange back but it was easy to paint out the orange with the correct color. Then I addressed noise with Neat image and healing for the bigger spots that were left----

Very nice job! How long did the whole thing take? I would like a little more detail on the recolor part when you have time.

[Kraellin]

re-did the color balance.

[swarbees]

I guess I spent about an hour on this between phone calls and other distractions. If you set about it you can probably do it in less than an hour.
The color correction is just the paintbrush set to color. Were ever you find the offending orangy color just sample next to it and brush over the spot. the values should already be right with corrected channels. When I did this I just sampled the correct color in the dresser for instance and then just (loosely) painted the whole dresser that color. Then the same for the curtains and other cabinet. But this makes for fairly flat color. If you want to keep it close to the same color as the original with the variation and depth that goes with it--you'll have to sample alot more often than I did which would increase the time spent. But if this color looks acceptable then it shouldn't take any longer than an hour.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Sandi

[swarbees]

I left out the first part: adding the original color information back in after correcting with channels. I corrected as much as I could with a channel mixer set to monochromatic. I was left with black and white image but I had saved the original image as another file --after I finished the channels corrections I opened that other file and copied it into my corrected image as another layer set to color. As I said this brought the orange back but now instead of a damaged spot which needed to be cloned or healed out it was just a color issue. The color correction with the paint brush made the spot completely disappear. You can't correct the spots this way unless you do the channels correction first. If you use the paint brush with out the first step the spot with still be there--it just won't be orange.

This color correction was just for the orange spots. To correct the overall color---so that the skin tones and hair color was better I just did a color balance layer. If you look at Chillin's version, the colors aren't as flat as mine. And It looks like I went a little too yellow on the skin tones looking at it again. That always happens--
;+}

[philbach]

Hey this is going to help me relearn calculations. Thanks for your input Lawmans3, TommyO, Lurch and others. I tried that on the yellow channel in CYMK which also had marked contrast.

Another quick way for me using photoshop was to use a HSL adjustment layer and select reds 2 color of 39/69 degrees with the eyedropper. Then: Sat -56 and Lightness +81 corrected a lot of the problem and it was not even necessary to use a mask.

[mytac]

Here is my feeble first attempt,, any comments ?

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...isters_4_a.jpg

[philbach]

Well you did remove the spots all right. But there seemed to me to be a bluish tint to the photo. I increased the contrast and adjusted the color. Also when posting photos its better to upload the photos directly to retouch rather than post links to other servers.