Tone and Color in Photoshop

Before on the left and after on the right. 

I opened this image in Photoshop, and the first step I took was to go into levels. I took the dark eye dropper and darkened the dark colors, then took the light eye dropper and lightened the highlights. Next I went to color balance, where I went to the mid-tones and put the yellow slider to -60. I did the same for the highlights, since the original picture was very blue. Last, I went into Hue/Saturation and put the yellow saturation to +36, the blue to +65 and the reds to +17. 

Before on top

After on Bottom

I pretty much went in the same order as the previous picture. First I went into levels and darkened the dark colors and lightened the lighter colors with the eye dropper tool. 

Next I went into color balance, and adjusted for the mid-tones, yellow +21, and green +21.  Last I went to Hue/Saturation and changed the saturation of the yellows to +27, greens to +33, blues to +79 and magenta's to +72. I then took the eye   dropper with the + and clicked on the pink flower to bring out that color a little bit more. I made the second picture brighter and brought out the colors more.

 Before on top.
After on bottom.
First I cropped and straightened the image. Next I took the brightness to 29 and the contrast to 27. Then I went to color balance and took the yellow mid tone to -19, and cyan mid-tone to -9. Next I went to levels and darkened the dark colors and lightened the light colors. Following that, I went to hue and saturation and but the blue saturation to +48. I then selected the sky and increased the saturation of the blues and yellows to make the sky pop a little bit more. 

Top before
Bottom after
First I went in and sharpened the image a little bit. Second, I went to brightness and contrast and took the brightness to -8 and the contrast to 12. Next I went to levels and used the eye dropper to darken the dark colors and lighten the light colors. Next was color balance. I put the yellow midtones to -23 and cyan midtone to -9. Last I went into hue and saturation and put the cyan to +39 and yellow to -24.

Top before
Bottom After
First I went to brightness and contrast and upped the contrast to 99 and the brightness to 7. Then I selected the lower left corner because it was way over exposed and bright the brightness and contrast down an bit to balance it out. Next I went to levels and adjusted it to make it a little darker because it looked washed out. Then I went into color balance, and selected the background and took the cyans to - 26.I made a new layerof color balance and included the whole picture, and took yellow to -26. Last, I changed the saturation of the reds to + 27, greens to +20 and cyan to -48.

Top before
Bottom After

The first step I took was to crop and straighten the image.Then I took the brightness to 9 and the contrast to 49. Following that,  I went to levels and darkened the image up. Next I went to color balance and took cyan to -23 and yellow to -14. Finally I added some saturation, red +11 and cyan to +20

Back light with front light. I took this through a tree, looking at the sun. I chose to use this photograph because even though there are sun spots, I liked the way you can see the suns rays coming through the leaves, and how you can see how green the leaves are with the sun behind them. 

Backlight #2

I started with levels and used the eye dropper to make the darks darker and lights lighter. I then went to color balance and made the midtones of yellow -19 since it was a little blue. I brightened it up and took the contrast up to 44 as well. Next I took the selection of my model and darkened it up a little with contrast and took the ground and darkened it up a little bit as well. Next I selected the sky and lightened it up a tad, and adjusted the mid tones and highlights.