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Chapter Seven: Your Color in Control

Colors Spin You Right Around

Overview

An old-school technique for exploring color options is the “color ring-around.” ¹ To get started, find an image that you want to experiment with and tweak it to a good neutral state. This will be your starting point. You’ll be creating a series of color options and circle them around the neutral version, increasing the intensity of the effect with each “ring” that circles the original (Figure 7.16). This technique is easy to do and can yield big results that show you the potential of your image (Figure 7.17).

How to Make a Color Ring-Around

We did this test in Lightroom, but it will work with any raw processor.

1. Use any method to neutralize your image. If you’d like, tweak the contrast and make some basic adjustments. You can begin with an in-camera custom WB and use a neutral card for click-balancing; pick a likely white or gray tone in the image to click balance on or simply adjust the WB and Tint sliders until the image looks neutral.
2. Make 18 virtual copies of the image. It helps if you stash them in a separate Collection.
3. Use the following list to make changes to the virtual copies. For convenience, we started with a daylight-balanced image at 5500K and a Tint value of 0. Adjust your test accordingly.
• Copies 1–3: Move the WB slider to make the image warmer in 1000K increments. If you begin at 5500K with your neutral image, you’ll end up with Copy #1 at 6500K, #2 at 7500K and #3 at 8500K.
• Copies 4–6: Move the WB slider to make the image cooler in 1000K increments. If you begin at 5500K with your neutral image, you’ll end up with Copy #4 at 4500K, #2 at 3500K and #3 at 2500K.
• Copies 7–9: Move the Tint slider in increments of 10 points to the left of 0 (or whatever your starting point was) to make it greener. You’ll end up with Copy #7 at 5500K +10G, #8 at 5500K +20G and #9 at 5500K +30G.
• Copies 10–12: Move the Tint slider in increments of 10 points to the right of 0 to make it more magenta. You’ll end up with Copy #10 at 5500K +10M, #11 at 5500K +20M and #12 at 5500K +30M
• Variations: If you’re working with a Tungsten-balanced image, remember those mired shifts. You might want to change the color temperature in increments of 500K, instead of 1000K.
• You can add additional sets of images by combining Tint shifts with Kelvin shifts. For example, you could create a set of 6500K images at +10M, +20M and +30M, and a matching set of 6500K images at -10G, -20G and -30G.

Play

In Lightroom, take this Collection of variations, and select them all. Choose the “Survey” option in the View menu (or hit the “N” button). This will bring up an editing window where you can see all the images and move them around. By clicking the “X” button, you can remove the images from the Survey mode. Remove any versions you don’t like, but keep in mind that you sometimes need to go too far to recognize that “almost too far” can be a good thing.