Color Correction of Hunter Orange Clothing

Posted: July 02, 2019

[caption id="attachment_33846" align="alignright" width="300"] Hunter Orange Showing as Yellow[/caption] Fluorescent orange or hunter orange clothing is often rendered as “yellow” when photographed in direct sunlight. The result is a photo of a hunter wearing yellow clothing rather than the lawfully-required safety orange. POMA member, and well-known outdoor photographer, Tim Flanigan (Nature Exposure) offers a craft improvement tip for photographers and photo editors regarding a post-processing method of correcting incorrectly-rendered hunter orange in digital photos.

Color Correction of Hunter Orange Clothing

[caption id="attachment_33845" align="alignright" width="300"] Color Corrected Hunter Orange[/caption] When photographing any licensed outdoor activity, it is vitally important that human subjects be clad in the proper amount of lawfully-required clothing, handling their gear correctly and safely and if on a watercraft, wearing a life preserver. Upland hunters and big game hunters are commonly required to be clad in a certain amount of “Daylight Fluorescent Orange” clothing such as a vest and a hat. For some strange reason, (unknown to me), digital cameras render “hunter orange” or “fluorescent orange.” as yellow when it is in direct sunlight, yet record it correctly when the orange clothing is shaded from the sun. It’s not uncommon to see photos of hunters wearing an orange vest that appears to be half yellow and half orange. The yellow side was exposed to direct sunlight when the camera’s shutter was tripped. Such images are commonly published in outdoor magazines. Oddly, we seem to overlook this quirk, but a corrected image is so much more pleasing to the eye than the off-color photo. Although there exists no available camera setting that will avoid or correct this discoloration quirk. There is, though, a Photoshop remedy technique. Here’s how: Select the “Quick Selection Tool” (W) with a single, left-mouse click on the tool icon and set the brush to a very small size using your { } bracket keys. The Quick Selection tool makes a selection by following the edges of the area that you desire to select. In this case, we want to select only the Yellow areas of what should be an orange vest or hat. Place the tool’s cursor on the various off-color, yellow areas of the vest or coat and the hat. Simply click and drag the cursor generally along the outlines of the area that you desire to correct. NOTE: if the tool’s brush size is set quite small, it will readily jump to select the entire outline of the yellow area. Repeat this selection process by clicking and dragging the cursor along the edges of all yellow areas. With the selections made, click on “Image” on the upper taskbar and select “Adjustments”  in the dropdown menu that appears and then select “Hue/Saturation” in the menu that pops out of that menu. The “Hue/Saturation” dialog box will appear, and you will notice a small icon of a hand with one raised a finger and two opposing arrows icon in the lower left corner of that box. Clicking on that small icon will cause an “eyedropper” symbol to appear. Slide it onto any/all of the selected yellow areas and click the left mouse button one time to select each area. That click will cause the word “yellows” to appear in the menu box’s small upper left window. This indicated that any adjustments that you make with the Hue – Saturation – Lightness sliders will only affect the selected yellow areas. Now, slide the “Hue” adjustment slider to the left until the proper color/shade of orange returns to the image. Sliding the adjustment to the left causes the numerical indicator to show digits in the minus range. Most yellow corrections are sufficient at about -25 or less. Click “OK” in the “Hue/Saturation” dialog box, and your image is corrected. Save it and smile.