Color grade an image in Pixelmator Pro on Mac
After you color correct an image and make basic edits to its structure, you can use the advanced color-grading tools in Pixelmator Pro to develop mood and correct color issues.
There are two groups of color-grading controls in the Color Adjustments pane:
Color Balance controls add color tints to shadows, midtones, and highlights.
Selective Color controls adjust specific color ranges—reds, oranges, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, violets, and magentas.
You can also apply an automatic Color Balance or Selective Color adjustment based on an intelligent analysis of your image.
Note: Not all images require both Color Balance and Selective Color adjustments, and you don’t need to make these adjustments in any specific order. However, common photo practice recommends establishing overall color balance in an image before adjusting individual colors.
Automatically color balance an image
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
in the Tools sidebar, then turn on Color Balance in the Color Adjustments pane.
Click
next to Color Balance.
Pixelmator Pro intelligently analyzes the layer and automatically balances color in the image.
Color balance an image using color wheels
Color wheels offer a natural and intuitive way to add color tints to the shadows, midtones, and highlights of an image.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
Click the pop-up menu under Color Balance, then choose one of the following:
Master: Enables a single color wheel for adjusting overall color tint in the image. This option is useful if you want one color to be more prominent than others globally.
3-Way Color: Enables three color wheels for adjusting color tints in shadows, midtones, and highlights individually. This is the best option for advanced color grading, when you need to achieve a particular look or match another image.
To adjust the color balance do any of the following:
Drag the central point in the middle of a wheel toward a color at the edges to add more of that color to the shadows, midtones, or highlights (when using the 3-Way Color wheels) or to the entire image (when using the Master wheel).
Drag the brightness slider on the right to adjust the brightness of the colors in the shadows, midtones, or highlights (when using the 3-Way Color wheels) or the entire image (when using the Master wheel).
Drag the saturation slider on the left to adjust the saturation of the colors in the shadows, midtones, or highlights (when using the 3-Way Color wheels) or the entire image (when using the Master wheel).
Color balance an image using sliders
Use Color Balance sliders for precise numeric control over the color values in any tonal range. The slider interface provides individual Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta, and Yellow/Blue sliders for each tonal range, giving you granular control over color shifts. This approach works well when you know the specific color cast you need to correct, want to achieve consistent results across a series of images, or simply prefer working numerically.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
Click the pop-up menu under Color Balance, then choose the tonal range (Shadows, Midtones, or Highlights) under Sliders to edit.
Drag the Red/Cyan, Green/Magenta, and Yellow/Blue sliders to add one color while subtracting its opposite from the selected tonal range.
For example, adding red necessarily subtracts cyan.
Automatically adjust color in an image
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
Click
next to Color Balance.
Pixelmator Pro intelligently analyzes the layer and automatically adjusts color.
Adjust specific color ranges in an image
Use the Selective Color controls in the Color Adjustments pane to fix specific color problems or modify specific colors in your image without affecting others. These controls isolate individual color ranges in the spectrum, letting you adjust color values in objects and areas while leaving the rest of the image untouched. Choose from eight color ranges—reds, oranges, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, violets, and magentas—then adjust their hue, saturation, and brightness independently. Each color range displays a histogram showing how much of that color appears in the image.
In Pixelmator Pro on Mac, select a layer in the Layers sidebar.
Select
Choose a color swatch to adjust in the Selective Color block.
Adjust any of the following sliders:
Hue: Drag to shift the hue of the selected color range. This is useful for making blues appear more teal or indigo, or making reds more orange, for example. Press and hold the Option key while dragging to extend the range of the Hue slider beyond 0% to 100%.
Saturation: Drag to adjust saturation in the selected color range.
Brightness: Drag to the right to make the colors in the selected color range brighter, or to the left to make them darker. Press and hold the Option key while dragging to extend the range of the Brightness slider beyond 0% to 100%.