Oh, what a cute puppy. I want him in my final image.
Let's put him in this basket.
And put the basket on this bed.
A little extracting, a little masking and we are done, right?Why does it look so bad? Mostly because the color tones are completely different. The room is red, so even daylight is going to have a very warm tone. The dog and the basket were photographed in a studio setting so they have a much cooler color tone.You can fix this using levels and channels and other fancy stuff. But an easy way to get close is Match Color, a smart function built right into Photoshop.
The first thing to do is make sure you are on the right layer. You need to be on the layer you want to change. So I make sure Dog is highlighted.Also, I make note that the Background layer has the color tones I want to apply to the dog. You can use any layer as the source, not just the background.
Next click Image on the menu bar at the top. You will get a pull down menu.Click on Adjustments and you will get another pull down menu.Click once more, this time on Match Color
The first thing is to check that the right layer is identified as the Target
Now we need to pick what we want as the source coloring. You do not have to use the same file as your current project, but the file must be open in your Photoshop workspace.This picture is called bedroom red so that is the one I pick.
Here we get to pick which layer of the image we want to match. I want to match the Background so I pick that.
As soon as I click on the source layer, the dog becomes much deeper in color and a lot of red is added to his coat.If the difference in colors on your layers is extreame you might get a really wonky result. Don't give up yet - we still have to adjust the intensity.This is not a bad match but not quite what I want.
In almost all cases you will want to Fade the effect. How much will depend on your particular images. In this case, I decide to fade it by 25%.You can play around with the Luminance and Color Intensity sliders and see if you like what happens.I am just going to fade this one because I think the pup is looking pretty good.
The Preview check box toggles the adjustment off and on in the main image. I always do that a few times to make sure I like the change.
Once I am happy with the pup's colors, I click OK and the adjustment is applied.This is applied directly onto the layer, so once you hit OK it is changed and once you save the file or do further work, it is permanent. I make a copy of the unadjusted layer (CTR-J on a PC) before I make permanent changes, just in case I change my mind.
Now we are going to adjust the Basket, so switch to that layer by clicking on it in the lower right corner.
Just as you did the first time, click Image on the menu bar at the top. You will get a pull down menu.Click on Adjustments and you will get another pull down menu.Click once more, this time on Match Color
The first thing is to check that the Basket layer is identified as the Target
We want to match the same layer as we did before, so I pick bedroom red as the Source file. And then Background as the Layer.
Again, I play around with the Fade slider until I like the look of the basket.
This looks pretty good to me.
After I click Preview a time or two, just to be sure, I click OK to apply the adjustment.
And this is what I get. The colors look great. I am not done completely, but that is a topic for a different tutorial.
After toning down the brightness of the basket layer and adding a couple of shadow layers, this is what I end up with.
To emphasize the improvement a simple Match Color can produce, here are the two images side by side.