In this article, we’ll take a look at another tool in Capture One Pro 12 that I use to sculpt the light and color in my landscape photographs. If you haven’t checked out part one of this series, click here to start reading. The Color Editor tool is a wonderful tool for selecting and editing colors in an image, but using it in conjunction with masks allows me even more control over what it affects.
In this example, I want to work on the blue of the sky, darkening it, increasing contrast and saturation. But I don’t want it affecting the water or the land and I want the selection to be subtle where the blue of the sky intersects the clouds.
Method 1
In this method, I use this Color Editor’s Advanced tab to select the blue of the sky and refine the selection. Then I convert it to a mask using the Color Editor 3-dot menu. This creates a layer. I then refine the layer to include only the sky areas and then using the Editor tools I increase saturation and reduce brightness.
Though I don’t talk about it in the video, layers are also an integral part of what allows us to work specifically on these areas of the photograph separately. We have our base layer called background and then we build other layers on top of that.
Here’s the before and after:
Method 2
In method 2, first I create a new layer with a mask of just the sky area. I refine that mask with the layer tools. Then I use the Color Editor’s Advanced tab to select the blue of the sky. Using the Color Editor I adjust the lightness and saturation of the selected color range. But because of the mask, the changes are restricted to the masked area, so no other areas of the photograph are affected.
Here’s the before and after:
Conclusion
Capture One Pro 12 has a powerful and amazing array of tools that can help you create the look and feel you want with your photography. If you haven’t tried it yet, you can save 30% and get a free upgrade to Capture One Pro 20 once it’s released. Just use the code CYBER-MONDAY-19. Hurry, this deal ends today, December 3, 2019!
