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Adobe Photoshop levels-Turn junk into
gold by clicking a button
by: Robert Kennedy
There is no doubt in my mind; Adobe Photoshop is the
greatest Photo editing program in the world. Whether you are a novice
or an expert Photoshop is the program for you. Photoshop is used by my
children and by the movie making industry. So what exactly can I do
with Photoshop? The better question is what can’t you do with
Photoshop?
Today I would like to talk about the simple little
function in Photoshop called ‘Levels’, the first step to improving the
appearance of a photograph. There are 4 basic steps taken to enhance,
brighten or retouch photos are Levels, Brightness, Variations, and
Saturation, in that order.
“The Levels dialog box lets you correct the tonal range
and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of the
image's shadows, midtones, and highlights. The Levels histogram serves
as a visual guide for adjusting the image's key tones.” Adobe’s
official description of levels
Screen example here: http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_ps_levels.htm
Use levels to set to darkest and lightest points or
sharpen the picture. From the top menu select Image, then select
Adjustments, then select Levels, or if you are a ctrl key fan click
‘ctrl l’. The histogram appears; the sliders at the bottom control
brightness and contrast while the sliders above control tonal values. I
said we were going to keep it simple so let’s use the sliders at the
top. They appear as 3 small triangles. Start to play with them. Move
them left to right and right to left while watching the changes you are
making to the photograph. When you are satisfied the picture appears
optimized click OK. Budda boom, you’re done. How long did that take?
That was really easy and effective. If you feel
adventurous repeat the process above. This time when the levels menu
appears double click on the eyedropper and target your tonal areas.
Here’s a couple of helpful tips while working with Adobe
Photoshop:
Click the ‘tab key’ to clear all tool bars.
To save an image for the web click ‘cntrl, shift, alt,
S’
Learn how to use the ‘automate’ feature and save
valuable time.
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About The Author
Robert is an online leader in graphic design and
print. Online since 1999, Robert has spearheaded the success of http://www.weprintcolor.com
by providing the finest online graphic design system on the web.
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Here is today's feature Photography article.
Passionate About Organizing - How To Create A Single System To Organise Both Your Digital And Traditional Photographs
by: Kesh Morjaria
Digital photography promises much. Store your photographs on your computer, print them when you want, email them to friends and family - share them to your heart’s content. Couldn’t be easier, could it? So how come that for most of us storing and sharing our photographs is a bit of a nightmare?
The ease of using a digital camera is its very undoing. It’s easy to take some shots and then ‘work on them later’. The trouble is that ‘later’ doesn’t happen often enough and we build up a huge backlog of images that we have to sort and process.
Click here to read the whole article.
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