How to Color Match Images in Photoshop

How to Color Match Images in Photoshop

You find a photograph and you love the coloring. Color Transfer, one of Photoshop’s Neural Filters, takes that palette and maps it onto an image of your own.

The filter itself takes about four clicks. The reason this tutorial is longer than four clicks is that Color Transfer gives you no way to fade its result — and the fix for that has to be set up before you run it.

Convert for Smart Filters Before You Start

Go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters and click OK. A small badge appears on the layer thumbnail confirming it is now a Smart Object.

1. Open the image you want to recolor

   Any photograph will do. The color is coming from somewhere else.

2. Go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters

   Click OK on the dialog. The badge on the layer thumbnail confirms it worked.

Why This Step Cannot Wait Until Later

Every other smart-object tutorial tells you to convert first so you can re-edit a filter afterwards. Here the reason is sharper: the only usable strength control for Color Transfer lives in the smart filter’s blending options, and those blending options do not exist unless the layer was a Smart Object when the filter ran.

Apply Color Transfer to a flat layer and you get one result at full strength with no way to dial it back. If Smart Objects are new to you, this is the clearest example of why the habit matters, and the longer guide covers the rest.

Finding Color Transfer in Neural Filters

Go to Filter > Neural Filters. The panel opens with a list of filters down the left — Skin Smoothing, Smart Portrait and Makeup Transfer under Portraits, then Landscape Mixer and Style Transfer under Creative. Under Color you will find Harmonization, Color Transfer and Colorize. Toggle Color Transfer on.

The Beta Label Does Not Mean the Beta App

Color Transfer is marked Beta in the panel, which reliably confuses people. You do not need to install Photoshop Beta to use it — the filter ships in the full release version, and it is the individual filter that carries the beta label, not the software. Several of its neighbors are the same, including Colorize and Landscape Mixer.

Presets, Then the Custom Tab

The panel opens on the Presets tab — a row of ready-made looks including a black and white conversion. Click any of them and Photoshop processes the result locally on your own machine rather than sending it off somewhere.

They are worth clicking through once. But the reason to be here is the Custom tab, where you supply the reference yourself.

Loading Your Own Reference Image

3. Go to Filter > Neural Filters and switch Color Transfer on

   It sits under the Color group in the list.

4. Click the Custom tab

   This is where you point the filter at your own reference.

5. Open the Reference image dropdown

   Choose Select an image from computer and pick the photo whose coloring you want.

6. Click Use this image

   It uploads, and the palette from your reference lands on your photograph.

The panel gives you a few controls alongside it: a Color space set to Lab, a Preserve luminance checkbox, and sliders for Luminance, Color strength, Saturation, Hue and Brightness. At the bottom, Output is set to Smart filter — which is only possible because of the conversion you did in step 2.

You are not locked into your first choice either. Select another image swaps the reference whenever you like.

It Will Come In Too Strong

On most photographs the transfer arrives far heavier than you want it. The palette is right; the amount of it is not.

The Control You Want Is Not in This Panel

The obvious fix would be a fade or opacity slider for the finished result, and Neural Filters simply does not offer one. The sliders in the panel tune the transfer itself — they will not blend the filtered version back toward your original.

So do not fight the panel. Get the palette roughly right, click OK, and control the strength outside the filter.

Where the Opacity Control Actually Lives

Click OK to close Neural Filters. In the Layers panel your layer now shows Smart Filters with Neural Filters listed beneath it, and to the right of that entry sits a small icon of two sliders. That icon is the whole answer.

7. Click OK to apply the filter

   It lands as a smart filter rather than as a permanent change.

8. Double-click the blending options icon

   The two small sliders to the right of Neural Filters in the Layers panel.

9. Drop the Opacity

   The Blending Options dialog opens at 100%. Around 60% is a sensible landing point for most images.

10. Try a different Mode while you are there

    Mode sits directly above Opacity. Screen is worth auditioning alongside Normal.

Click OK and you can now toggle the whole effect on and off from the Layers panel, at whatever strength you settled on. This is ordinary smart-filter behavior rather than anything special to Neural Filters — the same blending options are available to any filter applied to a Smart Object, and they are worth knowing about generally. If blend modes are unfamiliar territory, start here or work through the full set.

Swapping the Reference Without Starting Over

Double-click Neural Filters in the Layers panel and the panel reopens exactly as you left it. Choose Select another image, pick a different photograph, click Use this image, then OK.

This Is the Part That Makes It Usable

The result updates automatically and your blending options survive — the new reference arrives already at the opacity you set. That turns the whole thing into something you can actually audition: load a reference, judge it at 60%, swap it, judge again, without rebuilding anything between attempts.

Why the Smart Object Does the Heavy Lifting

It is tempting to read the conversion in step 2 as housekeeping. It is not — it is the step that turns a one-shot filter into an adjustable one.

Color Transfer on its own gives you a single answer at full strength. The same filter on a Smart Object gives you a blend mode, an opacity, an on/off switch, and a reference you can change your mind about. The filter did not get better; the container did.

The Reference Is the Real Variable

Once the setup is in place, the only decision left is which photograph you point it at — and swapping that takes about five seconds.

So gather a few images whose color you keep coming back to, and try them against the same photograph at the same opacity. Comparing references head to head tells you far more than perfecting any single one of them.

Quick Reference: Menus and Settings

• Set upFilter > Convert for Smart Filters, then OK
• Open the filterFilter > Neural Filters, switch on Color Transfer (Beta) in the Color group
• Load a referenceCustom tab > Select an image from computer > Use this image
• Fade the effectClick OK, double-click the two-slider icon beside Neural Filters, Opacity 60%
• Change the blendMode in the same Blending Options dialog: Screen, or back to Normal
• Try another referenceDouble-click Neural Filters > Select another image > Use this image > OK

No keyboard shortcuts in this one. It is all menus and clicks.