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Selective color - with C1 layers?

Jim Hughes
I'm doing selective color on a photo.

I want the entire image greyscale, except for a couple of things. I also want to darken the sky, without affecting other blue tones. But it seems I can't do both.

In an adjustment layer, I used the color editor to select blue and reduce its lightness; then I masked the sky. Result is a nice dark blue sky.

In another adjustment layer I reduced saturation. As I did so, the sky brightened up again; if I reduce saturation to 0, my sky adjustment layer has been effectively cancelled out and has no effect. Changing the order of these 2 layers makes no difference.

The Black & White tool doesn't work with a layer and mask.

I conclude there's no way to do selective (masked) desaturation with selective color adjustments.
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11 comments

Date Votes
  • Permanently deleted user
    well if you want to reduce the brightness of the sky by targeting a specific colour and then you "remove"that colour if won't work.
    You would have to convert the image to black and white first and then reduce the brightness of the sky manually with the brush.
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  • Jim Hughes
    That's obviously what's happening. But in a true layered model, each layer operates on the output of the previous layer. Why else give us the ability to re-order the layers?

    I can do this in PS Elements, using the Viveza plug-in to target the sky color and darken it, producing a new layer; then I create an adjustment layer and desaturate. It works just as expected.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NN635790973675498599UL" wrote:
    That's obviously what's happening. But in a true layered model, each layer operates on the output of the previous layer. Why else give us the ability to re-order the layers?



    I think you will find that C1 is different in that respect.

    I'm not sure that there is a definition for an industry standard "true layered model".

    In any case there are some modifications that one might make in a layer concept that would by their nature make any "higher" level change layers impossible to apply.

    [quote="NN635790973675498599UL" wrote:

    I can do this in PS Elements, using the Viveza plug-in to target the sky color and darken it, producing a new layer; then I create an adjustment layer and desaturate. It works just as expected.


    In C1 if you want spot colour have a look at the Built-In Presets > (for example) Colour Editor > Effects

    See if that gives you a starting point to create your own preferred settings for the selected colour and desaturation of the rest of the image. That would open up some possibilities for using layers too.

    HTH.


    Grant
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  • Jim Hughes
    While there's no 'definition' of a layered model, I think it's fair to say people who have used layers extensively in other software have some common expectations for how a 'layer' should behave. To me, "Layers" implies an ordered sequence. Otherwise why call them "layers" and not just "adjustments"?

    In this case, I'm mainly just puzzled. I don't understand why reducing saturation on one layer effectively cancels the color adjustment of the 'previous' (in my mind) layer. Maybe there's a sensible explanation that would be useful to know.

    [quote="SFA" wrote:

    In any case there are some modifications that one might make in a layer concept that would by their nature make any "higher" level change layers impossible to apply.


    Agreed, but I don't thnks this would be one of those cases.
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  • cdc
    I don't fully understand your workflow with what you have masked in what layers and so forth, with that said the color editor is not a luminosity editor so if you're desaturating the image with the global saturation tool the color editor adjustments will have reduced or no effect.

    Perhaps a work around would be using the color editor to create the layer mask for the colors you'd like to edit but use other tools to make the adjustments?
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  • Robert Whetton
    it's probably because Spot colouring belongs in a different time.. it should be a dead style by now...
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  • SFA
    [quote="NN635790973675498599UL" wrote:
    While there's no 'definition' of a layered model, I think it's fair to say people who have used layers extensively in other software have some common expectations for how a 'layer' should behave. To me, "Layers" implies an ordered sequence. Otherwise why call them "layers" and not just "adjustments"?

    In this case, I'm mainly just puzzled. I don't understand why reducing saturation on one layer effectively cancels the color adjustment of the 'previous' (in my mind) layer. Maybe there's a sensible explanation that would be useful to know.

    [quote="SFA" wrote:

    In any case there are some modifications that one might make in a layer concept that would by their nature make any "higher" level change layers impossible to apply.


    Agreed, but I don't thnks this would be one of those cases.


    I have used another RAW converter, before C1, that ended up offering extremely flexible layers that stacked and the position of the adjustment in the stack was indeed significant to the outcome. Moving layers around the stack, should one be so minded, could significantly change the results. This could be interesting and, if one had plenty of time available, fun.

    I could get some excellent results - better than LR and more easily than LR back in those days - and I was not forced to import anything or use a catalogue.

    When I tried C1 for the first time (V5) I was immediately struck by appearance of the images, the more subtle colours and the overall impression without having to do anything much at all. For all images, no matter what the content or shooting conditions. Far less work to finesse the immediate results although the other application offered things then (layers be a big and obvious example) that C1 did not have at the time.

    But what I realised was I didn't really miss layers back then because I had little or no need to "fix" areas of an image that appeared to be "wrong" using the other application. Most of the time. When I did need layers - no problem. The other application sits quite happily alongside C1 and, in the way I would use it, does its own thing.

    I thought I might miss the other application's layer calculation strategy where each layer acted in the output of the previous layer (more or less - a couple of exceptions had to be observed) just as you have suggested. But when layers came to C1, basically calculated from the bottom up in a pre-defined way no matter the order, I discovered that most of the time and for most images, it was fine and far less effort and guesswork to get things as they were required.

    As the layers development has progressed and widened in scope that impression has become stronger, at least for me.

    That said if your needs are such that you really feel a need to have total control over the effects of layer positioning then you may not always feel comfortable with C1. I thought I also had that need for control but in the end decided I didn't and saved a lot of time. Your needs may be different and you may have the time thing well under control.

    HTH.


    Grant
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  • HansB
    [quote="NN635790973675498599UL" wrote:
    ...
    In an adjustment layer, I used the color editor to select blue and reduce its lightness; then I masked the sky. Result is a nice dark blue sky.

    In another adjustment layer I reduced saturation. As I did so, the sky brightened up again; if I reduce saturation to 0, my sky adjustment layer has been effectively cancelled out and has no effect. Changing the order of these 2 layers makes no difference.

    The Black & White tool doesn't work with a layer and mask.
    ...

    I've been facing the same problem.
    CO seems to ignore the layer sequence in some cases.
    Reducing exposure's saturation removes color edits.
    Black and white, on the other hand, cannot be masked, yet keeps the color edits.

    But there is a solution:
    - create a new layer on top,
    - create your mask,
    - with the advanced color editor
    -- select any color,
    -- pull the color selection completely round the color wheel,
    -- click the 'span full saturation range',
    -- pull the saturation down


    Regards,
    Hans
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  • HansB
    [quote="HansB" wrote:
    ...
    -- select any color,
    -- pull the color selection completely round the color wheel,
    -- click the 'span full saturation range',
    ...

    Just to make it easier:
    Clicking the '+' in the advanced color editor instead of those 3 steps should do the trick, too.


    Regards,
    Hans
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  • Jim Hughes
    I understand that the color editor works on 'color' information, and not 'luminance'. I don't really understand how the 2 are separated, in terms of pixel data - but that's just a lack of knowledge on my part.

    And I understand that 'saturation' and 'hue' are attributes of color, which in some sense won't affect the absolute brightness of the pixels. What I don't understand is 'lightness'. I naively thought this would be the brightness of the selected color range, but that's obviously not true.

    What's 'lightness' and how is it different from 'saturation' ?
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  • cdc
    I'm not absolutely certain about this so please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the adjustments in Capture One are applied in a particular order and the 'Exposure' tool is applied before the 'Color Editor' tool. So what that means is if you reduce the saturation using the Exposure's Saturation slider, the Color Editor has nothing to work with and does not apply any adjustments. This is why I don't think your issue has anything to do with the way layers work, but it has to do with the way Capture One works. This is also why using the Color Editor for all of your saturation adjustments or other tools such as layer masks along with levels and/or curves for your luminosity may be a workaround.

    I believe this stems from Capture One's origins of being a simpler RAW converter/tether tool and transforming into what it is today. More and more people want Capture One to do everything, and it appears they are making attempts to do so by introducing more sophisticated photo editing tools such as layers. It seems they are doing it on top of their existing platform that has a particular order so not everything works the same as you might be used to it working in Photoshop for example.

    Again, I don't know how accurate of an assessment I am making. I'm just a user of Capture One who has picked up bits of information along the way of using and learning about the program. I'd hate to spread falsehoods so anyone is free to put me in my place if I am misspeaking.
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