Tutorial how to de-yellow dolls in photographs (adobe photoshop)

I love old dolls but they do certainly look jaundiced sometimes so here is a super simple way to fix that in photographs with Photoshop! The difference is pretty subtle but I do feel like it makes my doll photos look a bit nicer



Step 1.

Have your image open in Photoshop. I like to do all of the other color correction/basic editing (white balance, exposure, etc.) done before the de-yellowing, but you can do it during whichever part of the editing process is most comfortable to you.



Step 2.

Go to the bottom of the ‘Layers’ tab and click the circular icon. This will pull up a list of adjustment layer styles. At the bottom there is one labeled ‘Selective Color.’ Click this one to create an adjustment layer.



Step 3.

Creating this adjustment layer will open a new tab labeled ‘Properties.’ Using the ‘Colors’ section, choose ‘Yellows’ from the dropdown menu.




Step 4.

Drag the ‘Yellow’ slider to the left to decrease the amount of yellow in the yellow areas of the image until the doll has been de-yellowed to your liking. It may be more or less than what I have used here. If you feel that the doll’s skin is looking a little dull or desaturated, you can increase the amount of magenta in the same panel.



All done!

This style of color adjustment will also affect all other yellow objects and areas within an image. If you would not like for these areas to be affected, you can use a layer mask to remove the effect from these areas.



If you have any questions or if the images aren't working, please let me know! hopefully this can be helpful to someone

 

I'm glad it could be helpful!

The magenta just adds back in the red or pink pigment in resin that would break down from light and oxygen exposure. None of the colors in the sliders really counteract the yellow very well, but the magenta just adds color back in to make it less desaturated. The two other colors in the slider- cyan and black- make it greener (or less green) and lighter or darker.

If you were trying to counteract the yellow instead of removing it you could try using a 'photo filter' adjustment layer and selecting violet (make sure that the 'preserve luminosity' box is checked) and that seems to work reasonably well. You would have to use a layer mask to make sure that it didn't affect unwanted areas of the image, and it does create a strange cast on some brighter areas of the image, but it may work well for dolls with darker resin.

Spoiler: violet photo filter example

 

Yes- I do think that would be a good idea (especially if there are other yellow objects/clothing in the image). This method doesn't impact anything that isn't yellow, so some images would be fine without a mask, but it would be necessary in some cases. The more recent versions of Photoshop also have an object selection tool that can be used to make pretty precise masks very quickly and easily.