Changing background color and creating a lighter spot

[Frank Ruiter]

Hi Everyone,

I have to change the background color and make it less orange and more yellow. I also have to make a lighter 'spot' (i'm Dutch so i hope you know what i mean) in that same background to create a feeling of depth.
Could any of you help me on my way by telling me what steps to take?

many thanks,

Frank

[CathyH]

Hi
I selected the man with the magic wand tool, then select/invert and on a new layer I picked white and yellow and used a radial gradient. I drew from his ear down to the lower right hand corner.

If at a higher resolution, you might want to give it some feathering after making the selection. Select/feather and try a low 1-5 pixel radius.

[Swampy]

Hi, Frank! Welcome to RTP!

Here's what I did.

1. I used the magic wand to make the background selection. Created a Color adjustment layer with a yellow chip above the original. Set to Overlay blend mode. You can always go back and double click on the chip to adjust the color for more or less.
2. Loaded and inverted the above mask, went to the original photo and did "New Layer via Copy" to get an extraction of the man's head. Moved this above the color chip.
3. Created 2 layers filled with 50% gray set to Overlay blend mode. One for dodging (paint here with white brush, at low opacity to add more highlights to his face and background light source) The other to burn in any shadowy areas and darken the background slightly behind his head (paint with a soft black brush on this layer)
4. Lastly, Duplicated the headshot layer, locked transparency and filled with black. Moved this below the headshot layer. Unlock transparency. Did a Free Transform-Distort to shape the shadow, ran a gaussian blur and lowered opacity. Set this layer to Darken blend mode.

Hope this is what you needed.