How to single out colors when adjusting the curves?

Question

I am trying to edit the colors in this picture so that

1) the yellow letters in "Thomas Jr" pop out more. Currently they are too bright and disappear into the white background.

2) The white looks more pure. Currently it's kinda yellowish.

Currently I only know how to update the color of the whole image all at once, and don't know how to do single out specific colors. When I try doing it through Image > Adjustments > Curves, the colors get overexposed when I try to make the background more of a pure white (currently it looks a bit stained with yellow. Ideally the white would look like this:

P.S. I have Photoshop and Sketch

Answer 1

You didn't specify which software, so I did this quickly in Affinity Photo & Photoshop - this is a White Balance correction. I think that once your image is white balance corrected, the yellow letters will be far more visible and won't require any further editing. If I'm wrong, Scott has some great stuff in his answer about that step.

First in Affinity Photo - White Balance adjustment layer - select "Picker" and eyedropper an area which should be white in your image - the filter does the rest:

Then in Photoshop - Colour Balance adjustment layer - select highlights and eyeball it till you're happy:

In both cases the eyellow cast to your white has been shifted without blowing all your other colour relationships up.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I'm not entirely certain what your actual question may be.

If you need to target specific colors in an image....

• You can target a specific channel with adjustments

• You can make selections, and create adjustment layer with masks..