Photo Editing II

Photo Editing Checklist

1) Levels Adjustment

Adjustment layers are very easy to use, are non-destructive and you can use them to alter just parts of an image.

Use a Levels adjustment to enhance the tonal range and contrast of your picture, to correct lighting or exposure. Levels will often fix dull, flat images by adding contrast. Clicking on the Levels adjustment will pop up a panel with a chart of all possible tonal values in an image, the darkest on the left, lightest on the right. Increase contrast by setting new black and white points. Next adjust the midpoint.

2) Curves

An S curve increases contrast in a photo, in other words, the range of tones. The dark areas are darker the light areas are lighter.
This is a direct adjustment. It is similar to Levels but allows for even more control over the edit. It comes with a range of presets. Often “Increase Contrast” will give the desired effect. You can also decrease the impact of this edit layer using the opacity controls.

3) Shadows/Highlights

This is a direct adjustment. Use this tool to lighten shadows, darken highlights, and increase midtone contrast. You should make a copy of the photo first (Cmd J). Then you can adjust the opacity of the adjusted layer to lessen the effect if you wish.

4) Brightness/Contrast
Levels is more effective than Brightness/Contrast usually because you can control shadows, midtones and highlights independently. However, occasionally this is not the case. With Brightness/Contrast, the brightness slider is close to the Levels midtone slider. The Contrast slider is similar to the Levels’ shadows AND highlights slider.

5) Crop

Crop tool is the fourth one down on the toolbar

You can recompose an image using the crop tools. You can also simultaneously resize your image using the crop tool width and height function.

6) Sharpen

You can use the Adjust Sharpness or Unsharp Mask options under Enhance. Make a new layer with the image, Cmd J, because this is a direct edit. By making change on another layer you can easily see the impact of your sharpening and you can modify it using the opacity or the blending mode (changing it to Luminosity can minimize harsh effects of sharpen on an image.)

7) Save for Web

File > Save for Web and Devices:
Be sure to use this option because it will shrink your file size down considerably. On the right there is the option to select different quality. Generally I chose Very High, unless the file size is 350 K or over. In that case, I will select High, as long as the quality remains relatively good.