More Variations

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It's amazing just how much we can change the look and feel of an image purely by adjusting its coloring. The image above was taken with the Olympus E10 on a windswept beach but with the colour of the sand the image still looks rather 'warm'. Using Photoshop's Variations we can change the mood of the image and even make it into an Arctic scene

The first job is to duplicate the background by dragging over the 'Create new layer' icon. We can now make any necessary adjustments to the image such as Levels.

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The Variations is found under the Image>Adjust>Variations menu which opens the palette shown above. In the top left is our original image, we can change the tone of the image by clicking on the thumbnails in the larger frame. In the center of the frame is the Current Pick (also shown next to the Original thumbnail) clicking on 'More Cyan' or More Blue' etc. will add these tones to the image and will be shown in the Current Pick thumbnail. The image can also be made Lighter or Darker by clicking on the thumbnails on the right hand side of the palette. Once happy with your choice click OK.

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The finished image using ' More Cyan and Blue'.

Roll the cursor over the image to see the difference!

This technique can also be used to add more impact to the image so try experimenting.