Photoshop is a tool that gives you multiple ways of doing almost anything and you for the most part you can’t possibly hope to learn them all. Think of it as a buffet that gives you options you can’t fit, and on the menu today we have a quick tutorial on how to make selective color adjustments.
At some point in the future, there will be the need change or match one color in your almost-perfect image, and it would be of help to know more than one way to accomplish that. Here is a method from Adobe Systems Sr. Creative Director Russell Brown that you can add to your repertoire.
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Step #1
Select the layer of the image that you want to apply your changes to, select your “Marquee tool” and then zoom in to make a selection of the area you want to color correct.
Step #2
Press (Option) or (Command Key) or the (Alt) and (Control) Key which will make your mouse change. This will allow you to drag a sample of the color you want to change to an area with the color you want to change it to.
*Note* The patch that he just created is on the same layer as his swim fins. This will be important later.
Step #3
Next, select all the colors want adjusted by selecting the “Magic Wand” tool. Select the as much of the color you want change, in this case the fins, and then go to the “Select” menu and choose “Similar”.
Step #4
Hide the selection with (Command + H) or (Control + H) and note again that the patch in on the same layer as the fins. Now any adjustment made to the color patch will also be applied to the swim fins because they are on the same layer.
Step #5
Go to the “Channel Tabs” panel and select the “Red” channel and bring up “Levels” with (Command + L) or (Control + L) to adjust them on the “Red Channel” only until the tones on your sample patch and the chair match. You will repeat this process for both the “Blue” and “Green” channels and when you turn on all the channels, your patch will match the chair.
Original Article found on iso1200.com