Color Grading With Aqua And Brown Made Easy In Photoshop

When it comes to things like quickly learning new Photoshop techniques, I am a straight to the point type of guy. I don't necessarily want to (though I certainly do on occasion, depending on the topic) watch an hour long videos explaining the minutiae of every click of the mouse. While I appreciate production values and the personality that can be on display in a video, sometimes all you need to know can be learned from text overlay and elevator music. That's what we have on deck today, enjoy. 

Color grading your images is incredibly powerful. It's an opportunity for you to stylize your work to your own liking (and your client's liking) well beyond the straight from the camera file that you start with. In this quick and easy video from PSDesire, we find a straightforward way to apply some aqua and brown tones to an image.  Using the camera raw filter and the camera calibration adjustments tab you can quickly apply the desired tones. Further adjustments are made in camera raw (via hue, saturation, and luminosity) until you find a pleasing balance. 

Quick, straight to the point, easy to apply. What more can you ask for? When it comes to color toning, do you have favorite tones that you tend to use? Obviously teal and orange come to mind as popular options when people are looking for that “cinematic color grading.” The aqua and brown look has a very rustic-editorial vibe that I can really get into. When is the last time you just played around looking for new color tones you like? 

Evan Kane is a portrait photographer based near Seattle. He specializes in colorful location portraits with a bit of a fairy tale flair. Always looking to create something with emotion behind it, he fell backwards into photography in mid 2015 and has been pursuing this dream ever since. One if his mottos: "There is always more to learn."

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5 Comments

This is a beautiful color scheme to use. I use this often to take out distracting greens and yellows in grasses or trees.

For sure, this style or anything similar is excellent for toning down harsh (green/yellow) summer vibes :)

Aqua and brown is the new orange and teal?

If you want them to be :P