Sneaky Trick with Color Transfer in Photoshop for amazing color grading

Colin Smith

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Hacking Color Transfer, powerful new Neural Filter in Photoshop 2022

There are a number of ways to create color grades on photoshop in Photoshop and this way is very unique and really powerful.

Here is a great trick I discovered in Color Transfer in Photoshop. I love to experiment and try things that are a little off the beaten path. Ive discovered some really interesting ways of using Photoshop over the years with a little lateral thinking.

Install your Photographic Toning Gradients

This is a preliminary step if you don’t have Photographic toning gradients set up. It’s in Photoshop, but not installed by default.

Window>Gradients

Choose the menu on the top-right and choose Legacy Gradients.

Gradients panel menu with Legacy Gradients highlighted

Scroll down to Legacy>Photographic Toning.

Take a screen capture of the gradients. Cmd+Shift+4 on Mac (windows button + shift + s)

Legacy Gradients folder open to the Photographic Toning gradient swatches

Just in case you had trouble making a screen capture, or you want to skip that step, here is one for you, just download to your desktop.

Grid of Photographic Toning gradients used as a color reference image

Hack Adobe AI to make pro looking color grades

Ok, let’s do the thing.

Duplicate your layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J)

Layers panel with a duplicated Layer 1 of a portrait above the Background

Right-click on the top layer and choose Convert to Smart Object

Layers panel with Layer 1 converted to a Smart Object

Choose Filter>Neural Filters

Color Transfer

Neural Filters panel with Color Transfer turned on and the Custom tab

Click on Custom and click the folder to load in your own image

Color Transfer Custom tab with the folder icon to load a reference image

Choose the screen capture of the gradients. These aren’t gradients, but an image of them.

Photographic Toning gradient grid loaded as the Color Transfer reference image

In the thumbnail, drag your mouse around one of the gradients to make a selection

It will be applied to your image It will probably be too strong at the moment, but don’t worry.

Click ok

Portrait of a woman with wavy hair holding a flower, warmly toned by Color Transfer

Change to Color Blend Mode and lower the opacity to around 50%

Color graded portrait with Layer 1 set to Color blend mode at 54 percent

Double Click the words Neural Filters to open the dialog box back up

Layers panel with Neural Filters under Smart Filters on Layer 1, set to Color at 54 percent

Make a selection around a different gradient, or drag the existing selection to change the color grade. You should really watch the short video above to see this in action.

Portrait with a cool teal color grade from a different gradient in Color Transfer

I hope you found this helpful. See you next week with another new photoshop Tutorial

Colin


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11 comments

  1. Patrick Hardman

    This is a wonderful way to “color grade” and easily apply! Thanks for your continued support of photographers everywhere.

  2. Brad Harris

    You may have possibly destroyed the rest of my day … probably a good thing! 🙂

  3. Steven Hayre

    Very slick, is there a way to save the gradients under custom so you do not have to go searching for them again?

  4. Richard Bourdeau

    Fantastic. Would never have thought of that. I am looking forward to using the technique on both my portraits and landscapes. Again, many thanks for the great work.

  5. Why yes! Yes, you have discovered a great little “hack” there, Colin! Nice one, I will apply this right now, thank you.

  6. HA! I had so many things to do this afternoon, but instead, I’ve been playing with this… FUN! Thanks Colin!

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