This is a complex and powerful tool. It’s one of my most-used selection tools. It can be used to make selections based on colour or highlights, midtones and shadows. It works differently from the other masking tools we’ve covered so far in that it will create ‘soft’ masks where not all pixels within the selection have 100% opacity. This has the advantage of creating masks which are more subtle and which will blend in seamlessly.
The Colour Range Dialogue
A: Dropdown for Ranges
This offers a selection of possibilities:
I use Sampled Colours and Highlights, Midtones and Shadows. These are described below. I don’t use the 6 fixed colours, Skin Tones or Out of Gamut.
B: Localized Color Clusters
Sampled Colours
Ticking this will allow you to use the Range slider (see below) which restricts the area of your image used to make a selection.
If this option is unticked, the whole image will be used to make a selection.
Highlights, Midtones and Shadows
This option is unavailable and is greyed out.
C: Fuzziness
This sider determines the scope of your selection. As you drag the slider along to the right, more and more similar pixels will be included in your selection. It has a similar effect to the Tolerance option when you are using the Magic Wand tool.
D: Range
The Range slider can be used to target very specific areas of your image. It works differently for each of the following methods.
- Sampled Colours: The Range slider controls how far or near a colour must be from the sample points to be included in the selection. For example, your image might contain a patch of yellow flowers in both the foreground and the background, but you want to select only the foreground flowers. Sample the colours in the foreground flowers and reduce the Range so that the similarly coloured flowers in the background are not selected.
- Highlights: Move the slider to the left to include more highlights, to the right to narrow the selection.
- Midtones: There are two controllers, one for Highlights and one for Shadows. Move them further apart to enlarge the selection, closer together to reduce it. They can be set at any point in the range thus allowing a very targeted selection of any range of tones.
- Shadows: Move the slider to the right to include more shadows, to the left to narrow the selection.
E: Droppers
These 3 droppers allow you to create and refine selections. They only work if you have chosen Sampled Colours. The first dropper will create a new selection every time you click on your image. The dropper with the + sign will add to your selection. The dropper with the – sign will subtract from your selection.
F: Invert
This allows you to invert your selection so it is the exact opposite. This can be very useful if you want to select everything EXCEPT the selection you have just made. For example, to select everything which is not red, first select reds using Sampled Color and then invert th eselection.
G: Preview
This shows a thumbnail which can be set to show the mask produced by your selection choices or the image itself. I usually leave this on the Selection option.
H: Selection Preview
This option allows you to preview the main image in a number of ways. The dropdown offers several choices. I usually use None to start with and then Greyscale to refine my selection.
You can also save the settings you have made and reload them at any time using the Load and Save buttons.
Using the Colour Range Tool
Click Select Menu >>> Color Range. The dialogue will open up.
| Sampled Colours | Highlights, Midtones and Shadows |
|---|---|
| Select Sampled Colors from the dropdown. | Select one of these 3 options. |
| Uncheck Localized Color Clusters if you wish to use the whole image area. Check it if you want to home in on a specific area of your image. | Adjust the selection by using the Fuzziness and/or Range sliders. |
| Make a selection by clicking either on the thumbnail within the dialogue or by clicking the main image. | |
| Add to or subtract from your selection by using the dropper tools. | |
| Use the Fuzziness and/or Range slider (if relevant) to adjust the selection. |
In both cases, it’s possible to preview the selection in the main image window by choosing one of the options in the Selection Preview dropdown at the bottom of the Color Range dialogue. It is always the case that white reveals, black conceals. In other words white areas will be included in a selection while black areas will be excluded. Grey areas will also be included but these will be partially transparent.
Click OK when you are happy with your selection.
At this point I would normally save this selection as a mask. It’s also possible to apply the selection directly by adding an adjustment layer or a layer mask. More of this in the next module.
Example
In the example below I wanted to improve the image by increasing contrast, boosting the greens, yellows and oranges, reducing the greenness of the tree trunks and drawing attention to the two walkers and their dog. The changes were made using 6 masks created with the Color Range tool and applied to adjustment layers. These edits are described below. Finally, a vignette was added using a Curves adjustment and a layer mask.
Use the slider on the image below to see the Original and Final versions.
Each of the changes is quite subtle but, taken together, they result in a much-improved image.
Description of the Masks and Edits
Masks can be displayed in the main image area by opening the Channels panel and then holding down ALT and clicking on any mask. The images below are the masks used to edit this image.
Shadow areas – darkened slightly with a Curves adjustment layer.
Highlight areas – lightened slightly with a Curves adjustment layer.
Sampled Colour – Fuzziness set to a value of 172 and a range value of 15% to restrict the selection to the area around the walkers. Lightened slightly with a Curves adjustment layer.
Sampled Colour – orange and yellow foliage selected. Reds and yellows boosted in a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
Sampled Colour – green foliage selected. Greens and yellows boosted in a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
Sampled Colour – the trunks were selected. The main trunk selection was added to using a white brush. The Hue was changed using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
- Download this sample file.
- Open it in Photoshop.
- Use the Colour Range tool to create a mask which only includes the sky.
- Select the Shadows method.
- Tick the Invert box.
- Use the Fuzziness and Range sliders to get a perfect mask.
- Save a mask of your selection.
- With the selection active:
- Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Boost the saturation of the Reds and the Yellows.
- Add a Curves adjustment layer. Adjust this to darken the sky.
- Create a rectangular marquee at the top of the image. It should be the width of the image and extend down to about the top of the trees. Add a generous feather of about 120 pixels.
- With this selection active, add a Curves layer and darken the top of the sky.
Although these kinds of adjustments are a matter of personal taste, your result should look something like the image on the right. If you see any halos or ‘joins, then try again!
Hopefully this will have illustrated the power of the Colour Range tool to create selections of complex areas relatively easily.
