This new tutorial will allow you to make the colours on your photos pop and look more vibrant! It is a nice technique you can apply to photos with a great combination of colours .  Changing the image saturation may not be the best option to make the colours stand out and you will find in this video why.  Sometimes, we get a beautiful sunset and sunrise image and we just want to make the colours more stunning and we can certainly do it in Photoshop.

In this tutorial, two  images were used , one is a a beautiful sunset with lots of beautiful colours and the other one where you do not have so much colours  as a sunset image would offer.

Video: Make those colours POP!

Here’s a summary of the steps:

(View the video for full details and explanations)

First Image

1. Load your image in Photoshop.

First Method:

1. Add a Levels Adjustment layer.
2. Adjust the Control points towards each other within the Properties window
3. Adjust the control points until the desired effect is attained.
4. Changing the control points may affect some portion of the images.
5. To correct this we are going to do some layer masking.
6. Click on the layer Mask on your levels adjustment
7. Press Command or Ctrl+I and this will hide the adjustment completely.
8. Take the brush tool with the white foreground colours .
9. Set the Opacity level to 80%.
10. Brush into the parts of the image where you want the colours boosting option to be applied.
    Note: It is not recommended to do this effect all too much at once because it can get a bit heav-handed. Do one colour adjustment at a time rather than multiple colour all at once.

Second Method:

1. Add a Curves Adjustment layer.
2. Apply a simple S-curve adjustment under the Properties window.
3. Changing the control points may affect some portion of the images.
4. To correct this we are going to do some layer masking as well.
5. Click on the layer Mask on your curves adjustment
6. Press Command or Ctrl+I and this will hide the adjustment completely.
7. Take the brush tool with the white foreground colours .
8. Set the Opacity level to 80%.
9. Brush into the parts of the image where you want the colour boosting option to be applied.

Second Image

1. Click on the Hue/Saturation Layer.
2. Avoid using the Saturation slider with multiple colours all at once. .
3. Pick an individual colour at a single time.
4. Then boost the saturation slider of the individual colour.
5. You can repeat the same step with a different colour.
6. Add on a Curves adjustment layer.
7. Apply another S-curve adjustment.
8. Remove the dark shadows of the image by masking the shadows out.
9. Using the adjustment layer of the curves layer.
10. Take the brush tool with the white foreground colours .
11. Brush into the parts of the image where you want the shadows be removed.

Share your vibrant photos with us!

Click here now to join Photo Mastery Club and come share your results with this tutorial with your fellow members!