Mastering Color Correction for Real Estate Photos in Photoshop
Color correction plays a pivotal role in real estate photography, as it ensures the images appear vibrant, true to life, and visually appealing to potential buyers. With various light sources, from natural sunlight to artificial lighting, influencing the look of your photos, it becomes necessary to adjust and balance colors effectively. In this article, we will walk you through a simple yet powerful technique for color correction in Photoshop that helps tackle these challenges, especially in interior real estate photography.
What is Color Correction?
Color correction is a critical aspect of real estate photo editing, as it can greatly enhance the visual appeal of a property. However, it can be quite challenging given the various lighting sources found within a property, such as fluorescent lights, LEDs, incandescent lights, and sunlight. This is particularly true for interior real estate photography, where different light sources can produce a range of colors and color casts in one single image.
Auto white balance is often the default choice for correcting color in real estate photography, but it’s not always enough. In this article, we’ll go through a technique that works almost every time to correct color in interior real estate photography. This technique imitates the algorithm principles used inside your camera and involves two simple steps. Let’s get started with how to edit real estate photos in photoshop.
Technique Basics: Color Correction in Photoshop
Auto white balance (AWB) is a practical choice in real estate photography, given the time constraints and the vast area we’re trying to get the light just right. Cause unlike portrait or landscape photography, real estate photography involves a cacophony of lights that will vary from property to property, making it challenging to get the correct color. However, there are several constraints to using AWB, such as limited control, inaccurate color reproduction, and post-processing limitations.
The color correction technique we are introducing involves two fundamental steps that are part of every auto white balance algorithm, using Adobe Photoshop. By following this technique, you will have much more control over the entire tonal range of your pictures.
Step 1: Creating an Average Color Layer with the “Average” Filter in Photoshop
The first step of Photoshop color correction is to take an average across the entire tonal range. Let’s take a look at this example with a lot of color cast.
To do this in Photoshop, we need to expose the flash layer only, duplicate the layer, go to Filter, select Blur, and then select Average. This creates an entire color layer of the average color found across the scene.
Step 2: Creating a Correction Layer with the “Curves” Adjustment in Photoshop
The second step of Color correction in Photoshop is to adjust the curves layer to fix the color. Go to Layer, select New Adjustment Layer, and then select Curves.
Now comes the easy part. Click on the middle eyedropper (that’s your gray point dropper to say that the color you’re going to select will be considered neutral gray, so that the software will adjust the color balance of the entire image accordingly). Then, click anywhere on the screen, and you can see the average color changes.
Now turn on all the layers and enjoy the result.
If the result is too strong, you can simply reduce the opacity of that curves layer to tone it down and have a more natural look.
Applying the Technique to Complex Examples
In some cases, images may have different casts on different parts of the scene, such as a kitchen with multiple color temperatures. To address this, we can use the Lasso Tool to select the areas that need to be corrected.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations for Color Correction in Real Estate Photography
In conclusion, color correction is an essential aspect of real estate photo editing, as it helps showcase properties in the best possible light and attract potential buyers. By using the technique discussed in this article, we can achieve a consistent and professional-looking result in real estate photography. But if this is too time-consuming or complicated for you, that’s fine too. You can always outsource the editing process to a reliable company, such as Fotober, for a reasonable price.
