Chapter 12: Levels, Curves, and Shadows

Overview

In Chapter 11, you learned that Photoshop's first category of color correction, hue and saturation adjustments, change the actual color in an image independently of brightness values. This chapter covers the second category ” brightness and contrast ” which enables you to adjust the luminosity levels in an image. This lets you create a lighter or darker photograph, enhance or reducing contrast, and modify the balance of neutral grays and other colors.

The average user corrects brightness and contrast using the Image Adjustments Brightness/Contrast command and the resulting Brightness/Contrast dialog box. This pairing of simple users and a simple tool may seem like a good idea, but it's not. Further, this is not the Photoshop CS Bible, Average User Edition , so we'll be taking a different approach. Although simple, Brightness/Contrast provides no objective feedback beyond the preview in the image window, and it requires you to make important decisions that may erase details in whole areas of an image based on guesswork and speculation. This chapter is about the alternatives to Brightness/Contrast. Commands such as Levels (shown in Figure 12-1), Curves, and others demand more patience and technical knowledge, but in return they deliver reliable, exacting, unambiguous results. Of course, no one is suggesting you use Levels and Curves to adjust only your more important images; rather, it might be a better idea to use them to adjust all your images. After reading this chapter, hopefully youwon't ever use the Brightness/Contrast command again.

image from book
Figure 12-1: This is the Average User. He is attracted to the simplicity of Brightness/Contrast. He is confused by the raw power of Levels. He should not be allowed to use Photoshop.


Photoshop CS2 Bible
Photoshop CS2 Bible
ISBN: 0764589725
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 95

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net