Boosting individual color in CS4

Hey y'all; if I have an image that I want to boost the color, say, in the ties of the groomsmen, what's the best and easiest way to do that in CS4?

Hue/Sat layer masked to just their ties.

D Thompson wrote in post #11967239
Hue/Sat layer masked to just their ties.

Okayyy...in Idiot Speak, what exactly does that mean?

It's an Adjustment layer (you click on the little black/white icon at the bottom of your layers pallette and choose Hue/Saturation. It comes with a mask. Get the colors the way you want, then fill the mask with black to "hide" everything then paint the ties with white.

Oh, and get the book "Layers" by Matt Kloskowsi and start readin' up on this stuff, and start in with the Photoshop tutorials! Quick!

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #11967259
Okayyy...in Idiot Speak, what exactly does that mean?

What Tony said.

Ok, I did the Hue/Sat layer, got the tie the color I wanted; how do I then fill the mask with black?

Click on the layer mask. Make sure your foreground color is set to black at the bottom of the Tools bar. Press Shift-Backspace and choose to fill with the foreground color. Your mask should turn blace. Then, select a brush, enlarge the image (with the mask still selected), select the white background color as the new foreground color, and brush white over the needed areas, and voila!

I have CS3 so im sure you can do the same thing, it just probably in a different place.

The best way would be to use one of the selection tools to select the area around the ties, so that what you are doing would effect the rest of the image.

Then got SELECT > COLOR RANGE. Use the eye drop to select the color you're trying to affect. Once you do that, adjust the percentage. Lower selects the exact pixels you selected, and a high percentage selects a wider range.

Once you've done that, THEN go to whatever means you want change, affect or saturate that color. CONTROL D removes the selection guidelines.

If you do want to select the ties first, then try this:

Select the ties in the background area using the select tool of choice, then click on the adjustment layer icon and choose Hue/Saturation, and, like magic, the adjustment layer should appear with a mask that is black except for the selected area!

tonylong wrote in post #11967710
Click on the layer mask. Make sure your foreground color is set to black at the bottom of the Tools bar. Press Shift-Backspace and choose to fill with the foreground color. Your mask should turn blace. Then, select a brush, enlarge the image (with the mask still selected), select the white background color as the new foreground color, and brush white over the needed areas, and voila!

Ahhh! I thought it was Ctrl/backspace and that wasn't working. Thanks, Tony.

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #11967910
Ahhh! I thought it was Ctrl/backspace and that wasn't working. Thanks, Tony.

It depends on what your foreground/background colors are set at. Ctrl/backspace uses the background color while Alt/backspace will use your foreground color.

Tony your method worked great. I couldn't get the selection method, but that's on me, no practice with the selection tools.

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #11972691
Tony your method worked great. I couldn't get the selection method, but that's on me, no practice with the selection tools.

Well, good! For the selection stuff, there are several tools and all worth learning how to use, but it is a lot of learning and practice to get a feel of things!