How To Match Color Between Different Images In Photoshop

This video tutorial posted a few weeks back by Aaron Nace from Phlearn we look at how you can apply the color of any image to any other image using Photoshop.

Say you like the colors on one image but want to apply the same color scheme to another image, or you just want to create a series of your own images in the same color scheme this video will show you how to do that manually as there is no automatic way to do this in Photoshop (at least not at the time of posting this video).

The first step is to have the two of the images in the same document (make the second image smaller if you need), the second step is creating a black and white adjustment layer this can tell you if the bright and dark levels of both images match or more probably which you need to change and by how much.

We will create a levels adjustment layer below that layer and with this layer, we can change the light levels from the reference image to the image you want to adapt.

Now we can turn the B&W adjustment layer and go into a different color and make them do the same thing (one by one) and this is really the key to change and match the images.

This is a very manual work which has a lot of visual matching (you will need a good quality calibrated monitor to really get this one right) but the end result can help you get a series of images to look like they are part of a series even if they were shot in very different places with very different lighting.

A while back photographer Glyn Dewis demonstrated a different and relatively simple way yo match colors in an image using Photoshop which you can find here.

Bonus video: PTC on How To Match a Subject Into any Background In Photoshop

You can find many more Photoshop video tutorials on LensVid’s Photoshop section (you can also find a lot more Phlearn videos on our special Phlearn subsection).

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.