Welcome to the second part of this tutorial. In this one I’ll talk about Variations tool and how it’s really cool because of visuals. We will be working with this little devil again just a few years older now!

The right image is our final result. Now before going anywhere else left click on left image and save high-res image to your desktop so you can follow along what I’m doing!

This first part of tutorial shown you how we should go about fixing it using Color Balance function inside Photoshop. I personaly prefer the Variations tool which I’ll show you now!

Let’s open it and run Variations tool.

The variations tool look more interesting than the Color Balance right? And yet it’s even better. Now it’s a little hard to get a glympse of how it works on the first try, but once you get it you won’t be able not to use it.

It looks quite complicated, but it’s not. In order to explain it the best I can, I’ll divide it into two parts - Top and bottom. We will start from bottom and work our way to top.

-Bottom-
Left we have 7 images, from More Green to More Cyan. The middle one shows the current look of the image with all the adjustments you have made (More Green, More Red, etc)

The other six images will alter the color of your “Current Pick”. With More Red you will obviously add more redish look to your color, same as with rest. But geez we want to take away color not to add it, right ?

Well you see it works this way!

Let me explain - The More Cyan will absorb More Red and go more toward Cyan color, same with all the others. So if the image is too yellowish you should add More Blue. Got it?

On the right side we have light adjustments. It works the same way and there is not much to talk about.

-Top-

On the left we have two preview thumbs. Left one is the original, the image we started Variations tool with. The other one is our current, the new look if we were to press Ok.

On the right side we can specify what “part” of the image we want to adjust. We can chose between Shadows, Midtones, Highlights and Saturation. They all work the same way, you just end up adjusting different stuff.

Just below that we have Fine-Coarse slider. It represent how soft or hard the changes will be. It’s usually smart to keep it at middle way.

You can also Load, Save, Cancel and Apply. . Basic stuff !

2. Fixing the image
So now you have a solid understanding of how Variations tool work, and you’re ready to learn how to use it by example.

So you have seen the image above quite a few times, so what’s wrong with it? It’s too red and too yellow.
We need to take those colors away in small chunk. So we should add … More Cyan and More Blue, right?

Note: If you’re confused just look at explanation image above, it should all be clear.

Just click two (slow) times on the More Cyan and one (slow) time on More Blue and it should fix itself. Feel free to experiment and see what you can come up with!

That’s about it. Just click Ok when you’re done, or click on the original preview on top-left if you messed it up to reset it. If you have any question, or there is something you haven’t understood just ask me in the comment, I’ll answer you.