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May 2018

Is there a command/feature in photoshop where you can desaturate the highest color first, then the next highest color with high saturation, etc?

I'm talking about figure A.
It will desaturate yellow first with 100 saturation, then next with blue with 95, red 85 etc.
If you press Ctrl+U (Hue/Saturation) and adjust the saturation there, all colors will be simultaneously adjusted as shown in figure B. I'm not after that.

Is there such setting/command for that?

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    May '18
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    May '18
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While Photoshop is not my primary software I still remember a bit. But regarding desaturation I'm wondering if it's Levels, Curves or Color Balance. It might be something else but I'm not sure if there are any differences between he adjustment tools in CS6 versus CC.

I know there's also selective color but I'm not sure if it holds the same function.

The way I think it might work what you want to do, is go to Image> Adjustments> Replace color. There you can play with the hue and saturation with every color you choose.
Be careful, because when the colors are very mixed, the result is a bit rough where they mix

You could adjust with color balance, but I'm not sure that'd achieve what you want. It lets you add or remove specific colors, so you could drain red specifically from the whole picture while adding blue, etc. (Ctrl+B)

CTRL+U has a drop-down menu just above the hue slider, you can adjust saturation by hues (reds, yellows, greens, etc.) there but I don't think photoshop has a tool that does that kind of smart desaturation by itself.

I'm not really looking for color replacement or color balance.

OK. I guess it doesn't exist yet.
Was just wondering if there's such a smart de/saturation commands since I tend to use bright colors too much and want to make a global desaturation on the entire image without having to manually select colors, adjust the hue/sat, replace color, etc.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstand this a little, I thought you want desaturate every color separately.

Then, you can try going to Adjustments>Variations and play with the levels (?)
If not, I'm lost, I thinks there no tool or option for that and you must to work more adjusting it one for one -_-

I'm not aware of any such feature. You could set up some actions for different palettes if you often use similar color schemes.

Hmm... if you're semi-consistent with your bright colour palettes, you could probably use Photoshop's actions function to set up a manual de-saturation scale for yourself and run it whenever you finish your work.

Not sure if this is the most efficient but here's how I would approach this:

Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Hue Saturation - Adjust the saturation/desaturation to your liking - Select he LAYER MASK (that blank white layer you see on your adjustment layer) -fill it with BLACK (Everything looks like it is back to normal) - Grab a brush , select the color WHITE - Select the Layer Mask again and brush that white paint over the spot you want desaturated.

You will find that your saturation adjustment will appear on where you brush it.

I hope that makes sense. I use this technique a lot in various settings.

PS- I also noticed your usename. lol made me smile. XD