Color grading is a technique used by photographers to alter the visual tone of a photograph. To put it another way, it’s used to change the colors of a video or photograph. The aesthetics of an image will radically change if color grading is performed.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add a Blue and Gold Color Grading Effect to your image to give it a really cool and surreal vibe.
For this lesson, I’ll use Photoshop 2022 but any version of Photoshop will work for this short demonstration.
This project uses the image below. You can download it to follow along or you can pick your own image. I found that the Blue and Gold Color Grading Effect works well when applied to an image with intense and vibrant colors.
Photo by Engin Yapici on Unsplash
Final Image
Drag The Slider To See Before & After
Create a Blue and Gold Color Grading Effect
Step 1: Change the Color Mode to Lab Color
First, open up your image in Photoshop and press CTRL + J to duplicate it and have a backup of your original image.
Next, we’ll change the color mode. Go to Image > Mode > Lab Color. A dialog box will pop, just hit Don’t Merge.
Step 2: Channels
Once you have changed the color mode, go to your Channels in the layer panel.
First, choose “a Channel” and press Ctrl + A to select all your canvas.
Next, you’ll copy that selection by pressing Ctrl + C. Then choose b Channel and paste that selection by pressing CTRL + V.
To finish, press CTRL + D to deselect.
Up to this point, your image should look like the one below:
To finish with Step 2, we’ll change the Color Mode back to RGB Mode. Go to Image > Mode > RGB Color. A dialog box will pop, just hit Don’t Merge.
Step 3: Enhancing our Color Grading Effect
To finish with our project, let’s add a Selective Color adjustment layer. Head over to your layer panel and select Selective Color.
First, in the properties panel select the Reds and copy my settings as shown on the image below:
Reds
Cyan: -50%
Magenta: 0%
Yellow: +50%
Black: 0%
Next, select the Cyans and copy my settings as shown on the image below:
Cyans
Cyan: +30%
Magenta: +30%
Yellow: -30%
Black: 0%
And We Are Done!
After following this tutorial, you should be able to Create a Blue and Gold Color Grading Effect in Photoshop. I hope you found this guide useful and easy to follow. If you have any questions or suggestions please let me know in the comments down below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
