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Something I see all the time in the Facebook group is people struggling with colour casts, usually of the green variety, but with an array of dogs who are not black, nor white, or a mixture of the two, I knew I needed to create a video covering a few different ways to remove colour casts in Photoshop, whilst leaving the coat colour intact.

That’s not that easy, but it’s really not impossible. I’ll include a link to the video walkthrough below and cover off the different methods in brief further down (please Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you like the content!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oueHlK6fKs

So what are the 3 ways to remove colour casts in Photoshop?

1. The Desat Method

This method is the most widely known and it’s also the least sensitive in terms of tones. The Desat method works by removing all colour from a specific area and is a quick adjustment to make on white or black coated dogs.

For this method you would:

  1. Open the image in Photoshop and click the active/uppermost layer in the layers panel
  2. Head down the the adjustment layer icon (circle cut in half) and find Hue/Saturation in the pop-up menu
  3. In the Hue/Sat properties panel, the middle slider will be Saturation – pull this all the way to the left
  4. On the layer mask for the Hue/Sat adjustment, press cmd+I or cntl+I to invert the mask – the image will return to normal
  5. Grab a big soft brush in white, at 100% opacity and paint over the areas of cast via the layer mask
  6. Reduce the opacity of the Hue/Sat layer to suit the colours in the scene and the strength of the cast
  7. That’s it!

2. The Inversion Method

This method is slightly more work than the Desat method but in all honesty, it produces almost identical results because you are converting all colours in all channels to their direct opposite – therefore desaturating them. It’s a good adjustment to know for spot treatments on white or black coated dogs.

  1. Duplicate your image layer from the layers panel by clicking on it and pressing cmd+J or cntl+J
  2. With the new duplicated layer selected, press cmd+I or cntl+I to invert the layer itself
  3. Add a black mask by either holding alt/option whilst clicking the layer mask icon (square with a circle in it) at the bottom of the layers panel window or add a white mask and invert it
  4. Paint over the areas you want to adjust with a soft white brush – it will look very strange
  5. At the top of the layers panel, go into your layer styles menu (usually says “Normal” as standard) and select Colour or Hue from the list – as far as I can tell, neither has any bearing on the result with this action
  6. Reduce the opacity of the layer to less than 50% – 50% of this action is black and white or a complete desaturation
  7. That’s it!

3. The Filter Method

This method is probably the most complex but it is the only on in list which directly targets the actual cast and not all of the colours in the image. It is more work than the other methods but it produces more sensitive and tonal adjustments, leaving the coat colour of the dog intact in most cases. This is a method that works just as well for black dogs as it would for purple dogs.

  1. Head down to the adjustment layer menu once more (see number 2 in Desat method) and select Photo Filter
  2. In the properties panel, you’ll see an orange swatch – that’s a warming filter. Click the orange swatch
  3. A colour picker will come up, click the colour that is the source of the cast – pick carefully
  4. Once picked, look for the upper right numbers column in the colour picker, L: a: b:
  5. The numbers next to a: and b: you need to invert – so you’re changing a positive to a negative and a negative to a positive
  6. Click ok on the colour picker window
  7. In the properties panel, move the density up to around 50%
  8. On the adjustment in the layers panel, adjust the opacity to suit – look at white areas (if visible) to ensure you aren’t overcooking it!
  9. That’s it!

You’re all set – go forth and remove casts in Photoshop!

Please share your results with me, it’s great to see them ❤️