November, 2009

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Part V: The Part of Tens

Tools that appear in Photoshop. In Elements, you’re limited to preset Curves adjustments for controlling brightness and contrast. In Photoshop, you have the control that changes tone levels along the 256 distinct grays in an image, in all three channels.

Having the control over the tone points in your images lets you fine-tune adjustments for lightening and darkening an image and adding or reducing image contrast. There’s really no substitute for Curves adjustments when you’re color cor­recting images and adjusting tone levels for brightness and contrast adjustments.

You can open Curves by selecting ImageOAdjustmentsOCurves or create an adjustment layer in Photoshop and select a Curves

Adjustment layer. When the Curves dialog box opens, you see the options shown in Figure 16-1.

Figure 16-1: The Curves dialog box in Adobe Photoshop.

From the Channel drop-down menu, you can select the RGB channels, as well as the composite RGB channel. Click the curve line to plot points and move those points up, down, left, and right to make tonal adjustments.

Generally, Curves settings are con­fusing to the most advanced user, but you can easily understand Curves with a little study. You use six primary Curve shapes to make some brightness and contrast adjustments. The six basic shapes include

U* Darken: Note the gradient along the left side of the dialog box where white appears at the top. To darken an image, click the center of the diagonal line and move the point toward the black end of the gradient (down). This move darkens the overall image. (See Figure 16-2.)

Figure 16-2: Move the center point black end of the gradient to darken

Toward the the photo.

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Chapter 16: Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Photoshop

I^ Lighten: To lighten an image, plot a point at the center of the diagonal line and move the point toward white (in the opposite direction you move the point to darken the image). See Figure 16-3.

W* Darken with more contrast: To add more image contrast while darken­ing a photo, first click to plot a point in the top-right corner to anchor the curve. Then plot a point in the lower-left corner and move that point as shown in Figure 16-4.

Figure 16-3: Move the center point toward the white end of the gradient to lighten the photo.

Figure 16-4: This curve darkens a photo while adding more contrast.

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Part V: The Part of Tens

I^ Lighten with more contrast: Plot a point in the lower-left corner and move the top-right point left to lighten the photo while adding more contrast, as shown in Figure 16-5.

W* Darken with less contrast: Plot a point in the lower-left corner and move a point in the top-right corner down to darken the photo while reducing contrast, as shown in Figure 16-6.

I^ Lighten with less contrast: The last basic curve adjustment uses a point plotted in the top-right corner, and the lower-left point is moved up, as shown in Figure 16-7, to lighten the photo while reducing contrast.

Figure 16-5: This curve lightens a photo while adding more contrast.