How to correct diamond color is a important problem of jewellery editing . because diamond’s value is affected by color, Colorless diamond rates are higher on than that is light yellow or brown. Sometimes there are yellow-brown color cast in the diamond that caused by light conditions, This problem makes jewellery cheaper.
A professional jewellery editor always correct the color cast by first step of jewellery editing. This jewellery editing tutorial show you how to correct the yellow-brown color cast of diamond by photoshop.
Jewellery retouch tips
- Recommend use Curve tool to correct diamond color when editing jewellery photo , Curve tool can provide more exact adjustment than other tools.
- Recommend Use pen tool to make a selection. Jewellery editor always use pen tool to exactly define the outline of the area that want to retouch.
- Before you adjusting the color cast, you should learn about basic color theory, As below example shows, Blue is the opposite color of yellow. Red is the opposite color of cyan, so if you hope to decrease yellow color, you have to increase blue color. Learn more about color theory in adobe.com
Step 1:Change background for jewellery
Use the pen tool to clipping path for the whole necklace in the photo, then convert the path to selection, Then inverse the selection and change jewellery’s background to white or other color you want.
Step 2: Add an adjustment layer for the diamond
Use the pen tool to clipping path for the diamond, Convert the path to selection, Go to the Layers panel, click the Create adjustment layer icon, and choose Levels. This adds a Curve adjustment layer with mask that you can correct diamond color without changing others in the photo.
Step 3: Adjust diamond’s brightness and contrast with curve adjustment layer
Select the RGB panel of Curve tool. Place one curve point on the highlight tone and another on the dark tone, Drag the highlight tone point to left to increase brightness, Lock the dark point to keep the shadow areas stay. Dark tone darker but without affecting the mid to highlight tone so much.
Now the color is too yellow, but we will adjust this problem in next step.
Step 4: Correct diamond color cast by Curve tool
Select the blue panel of Curve tool, Place one curve point on the mid-tone and drag it to left to increase blue color, Then select the red panel, Place one curve point on the mid-tone and drag it to light a little to decrease red color.
Step 5: Further adjust diamond’s color cast by Hue/saturation tool
Now the most of yellow-brown color cast is removed, but there is still a little color cast in the diamond. To remove it, We create a Hue/saturation adjustment layer, Go to the channel menu, select the yellow channel, Drag the saturation to left to remove the rest yellow color.
Final jewellery editing effect
After correcting diamond color. There are many things need to further optimize for the diamond, Such as lighter the dark area in the middle of diamond. Darker the overexpose area of the diamond. Clear dust particles, scratches and spots on the diamond . Add sharpen and reduce noise for the diamond.
