Purple Water?

[ScubaSteve]

Is there anybody that can tell me why, when I used CS3 to add back in the red to this photo (and then adjusted auto levels), the water turned purple? Although the effect is kind of neat, I would like to understand why (and as you can tell my digital photo alteration and manipulation skills are almost in the negative). I have tried adjusting the process (the red colour that gets added in) slightly but it always comes back this way......any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[ScubaSteve]

By the way, this is a simplified version of what I am doing in CS3....

1. Making 2 copied layers.
2. Fill Gray 50% on the middle layer
3. Changing the top layer to Luminosity
4. Merging the top two layers
5. Creating a blank layer and filling it with RED 255/0/0
6. Change that layer to Multiply
7. Merge the top two layers
8. Change the now top layer to Screen
9. Merge the two layers together making one only
10. Run auto level

On many shots, it works very well....I apologize but I do not remember what ther term is for the "Luminosity/Multiply/Screen" things are. I am lucky I remembered this much .

 

[AndyT]

I have used the same procedure, sometimes just using levels instead of auto levels does the trick.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I will try it tonight and see. Thanks for the idea.

 

[rjsimp]

Red + Blue (if the blue was already dark blue) will make purple.

If you like the blue as it was before the correction, mask the subject and correct it only leaving the blue alone.

I would have to see the original though to know for sure where you started.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Red + Blue (if the blue was already dark blue) will make purple.

If you like the blue as it was before the correction, mask the subject and correct it only leaving the blue alone.

I would have to see the original though to know for sure where you started.

rjsimp is right. If you're happy with the color correction on the subject of interest but not the background, then use the mask function to exclude the background from color correction.

I agree that posting the original picture would give us more info. Before-and-after comparisons are helpful.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Ask and ye shall recieve......a size reduced original

I am not a fan of the background blue so I am going to try to see what I can get through manual level adjustment. Thanks so far and if the original spars other ideas, share away.

 

[rjsimp]

Well.. I would definitely attack the color of the water separate from the color of the subject. Use a mask and do it that way. Then you could make the water a bit darker and keep the blue, while fixing the subject and increasing the contrast.

 

[diversteve]

I don't have CS3 but here's what I did:

Processed your photo through the Kedaffie "Bring Back the Reds filter". It was then too monochromatic.

Played with the Hue in the Master channel. I decreased the Hue and increased the Saturation slightly.
Pushed the Hue in the Blue channel till the water looked more blue.
Pushed the Hue in the Red red channel to make the squid more brown.
Tweaked the sharpness slightly using Unsharp Mask with a 100 Threshold. Sometimes that can be too much depending on the other settings but in this case it defocused the background.

being objective, I think I've got too much blue in the squid's body. So I'd do less next time.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Thanks Steve. I will try to see if I can translate that stuff into CS3 terms (I really do not know much about the software unfortunately) and see if I can get the same results. I have tried playing but came up with nothing near as good as yours. I think because I am NOT versed in the use of the software, it will take a lot of playing around to figure these things out to the level of others.