How to make sand white??? :)

haring

I am a wedding photographer based in Miami. I shoot a lot of beach weddings. Some of my clients want me to make the sand white. How do you achieve this so it looks great?

I have tried to desaturate the sand however I just don't like how it looks. It looks muddy and not real. How do you achieve the white sand look without traveling to Micronesia....?

Thanks so much!

TonyCooper

Without knowing what software you use for post, it's difficult to offer a suggestion.

Using Photoshop CC 2014 I had some success with a photograph taken at New Smyrna Beach
turning gray sand to white sand using Image>Adjustments>Replace Color and sampling
the sand and moving the Lightness slider to the right. However, this is a global image change
and other grays in the image will shift color. Better results could be done if I wanted to
take the time to use a Mask.

My son-in-law shoots surfing photographs in Jax Beach. Some magazines reject his photos
because the water is not blue enough.

Our sand isn't white, and our water isn't blue.

Fiddlestix

Without seeing an example of what your sand looks like (grey, brown, yellow, etc), I can only suggest that you do a selection of the sand and then make a white balance adjustment (if the sand color is too brown/yellow) and/or making an exposure adjustment on the selection if it is too grey. I would also look at desaturating the selection in addition to the WB or exp adjustments. Just something you might try.

billweckel

You need to mask it or knock it out. Global adjustments won't work. Depending on the shot, it can be painstaking.

Personally, I would tell the clients that making the sand white is very involved and amounts to hand tinting the photo. Charge $75/hr extra. If it's that important to them, they can pay for it. Then, send the image to an editing service in India or Viet Nam. You'll pay $10 max and have the corrected image back the next day. Keep $65 for your trouble. i work in advertising in the panhandle and deal with the "white sand issue" all the time. This is what we do.

Bill

www.billweckel.com

fool4thecity

Make a new blank layer, select a brush and the color white your looking for and start painting. When you're done change the blend mode to "Color" and change to opacity to taste. That's how I'd do it. Quick & Easy.