Goodwill Community Foundation creating
opportunities for a better life most
photos aren't perfect as you gain more
experience with Photoshop you'll
probably start to notice some common
problems that you wish you could fix
luckily there ways to do this even if
you're not a seasoned pro in this video
we're going to cover everything you need
to get started including how to adjust
your levels curves saturation and more
levels let you adjust the shadows
highlights and mid-tones in your image
which are things that every image has
shadows with the darkest parts
highlights or the brightest and the
mid-tones are everything in between
there are many reasons why you might use
a levels adjustment for example here we
have a photo that's underexposed which
means not enough light was captured when
the photo was taken if we adjust the
levels we can make the mid-tones and
highlights brighter so the details are
easier to see let me show you how it
works first go ahead and create an
adjustment layer make sure to choose the
levels option from the menu when the
properties panel appears you should see
a graph in the center this is called the
histogram the histogram shows you data
about the shadows mid-tones and
highlights in your image you can make
adjustments using the sliders below now
this might seem a little strange at
first but don't worry with some hands-on
experience you'll start to get the hang
of it in our example we're gonna move
the highlights layer so it's where the
histogram actually ends and then move
the mid-tone slider a little to the left
which will make the image a bit lighter
overall every image is unique so when
you start doing this on your own you
will see some big differences between
histograms basically the key is to
target the end points with the shadow
and highlight sliders then you can
adjust the mid-tones depending on what
you need for example lighter or darker
just be careful not to move the sliders
too far past the end points this can
cause you to lose detail in your image
also known as clipping as always if you
do end up making a mistake it's not the
end of the world you can just move the
slider back or press ctrl Z or command Z
to undo
when you're done here's a tip that will
let you compare the adjustments to the
original image just turn the layer on or
off using the icon here see how the
original is so much darker overall in
the new version the sky and the clouds
look much much brighter so the subject
is easier to see similar to levels is a
feature called curves the difference is
that curves let you adjust shadows
highlights and mid-tones separately the
tool is a bit harder to use
but for experienced users it does offer
a lot more control let's take a look at
how it works just like before you'll
start by adding an adjustment layer this
time choose curves when the panel
appears you should see a diagonal line
that has two beginning and end points
this is where you'll make your
adjustments of course it looks very
different from the levels interface but
it has the same arrangement of shadows
on the left and highlights on the right
to add a point just click anywhere on
the line then drag up down left or right
to see the effect it has one of the
simplest things you can do with curves
is to increase the contrast to do this
you'll need to drag the curve down
towards the left
then click to add a second point and
drag it up near the right see how we've
created a gentle curve that follows the
upward slope of the line by dragging it
down near the shadows and up near the
highlights we've intensified those parts
of the image if we wanted to decrease
the contrast we could just do the
opposite drag it down here instead and
then up over here just be careful to
avoid big steep curves that don't follow
the slope of the line as with levels you
can end up losing a lot of detail in
your image while you're still getting
the hang of curves you might want to
check out the presets menu - here you'll
find lots of built-in options that you
can then customize as needed these can
also help you get a better understanding
of how the curves interface works if you
ever need to start over just go back to
the menu and choose default there are
many times when you might want to adjust
the colors in your image with saturation
you can increase or decrease the color
intensity either as a correction or just
for artistic effect luckily this is one
of the easiest adjustments you can make
in Photoshop all you have to do is add
an adjustment layer for hue saturation
then you can make your changes using the
slider here if the colors in your image
are dull or muted increasing the
saturation will make them look more
vivid if you drag the slider in the
opposite direction you can see that it
reduces the intensity instead you can
even create a black and white or
grayscale image by dragging it all the
way to the left
as with levels and curves you'll want to
avoid making extreme adjustments for
example watch what happens when I drag
the slider all the way to the right now
we've lost a lot of detail in the image
and the colors look pretty unnatural I'm
just going to drag this a little bit
back towards the left and I think that
should do it
of course this is only the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to making color
adjustments if you go back to the
adjustments menu you'll find lots of
other options to choose from
vibrance for example will up the
saturation for parts of your image
without
over saturating the parts that are
already colorful black and white on the
other hand we'll give you more control
over desaturation
make sure to check these out when you
have some time on your own
finally some Corrections are harder to
pull off than others
luckily Photoshop comes with several
auto adjustment tools that can help you
make specialized Corrections in no time
take this image for example see how the
snow sort of has a bluish tint to it to
fix this all we have to do is go to the
image menu then choose the option that
says auto color now the snow looks white
if you go back to the image menu you'll
see there are two more auto adjustments
to choose from Auto tone and auto
contrast another place that you'll
sometimes find an auto option is within
certain adjustment layers in general
these can be a great way to improve your
image quickly without much time and
effort you can also just plan to use
them as a starting point and tweak the
adjustments afterwards to customize them
whether your image is too light or too
dark too dull or too saturated you can
fix all kinds of common problems in
Photoshop now you know some tools that
can help you improve your images
dramatically including levels curves
saturation and more