How to Create a Blue and Gold Color Grading Effect in Photoshop

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

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.

Duplicate your background image
Duplicate your background image

Next, we’ll change the color mode. Go to Image > Mode > Lab Color. A dialog box will pop, just hit Don’t Merge.

Change Color Mode
Change Color Mode

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.

Select the "a Channel and press CTRL + A
Select the “a Channel” and press Ctrl + A then Ctrl + C
Select the "b Channel" and press Ctrl + V
Select the “b Channel” and press Ctrl + V

Up to this point, your image should look like the one below:

Our image up to this point
Our image up to this point

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.

Color Grading
Back to RGB Color Mode

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.

Add a Selective Color Adjustment Layer
Add a Selective Color Adjustment Layer

First, in the properties panel select the Reds and copy my settings as shown on the image below:

Color Grading
Settings

Reds

Cyan: -50%

Magenta: 0%

Yellow: +50%

Black: 0%

Next, select the Cyans and copy my settings as shown on the image below:

Settings
Settings

Cyans

Cyan: +30%

Magenta: +30%

Yellow: -30%

Black: 0%

And We Are Done!

Final Result
Final Result

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.