WonByOne_PhotoShopClass

With Photoshop open, click on File heading at the top left of the menu bar and select Open. You will be directed to the most recent location of images or folders last used to open a file. Navigate to the folder location or image you wish to open. If files are arranged in a list format, you can change to thumbnail view to see a mini version of each image. Make your selection and click on the Open button.

We know from lesson #4 that the Levels menu has a Shadow slider, a Mid-Tones slider, and a Highlights slider. We also remember that there are 256 levels or shades in each of the RGB channels. By using just the Mid-Tone or middle slider, we can adjust the depth of contrast in our image. This one control can make a dull image come alive as we have seen in some of our other lesson examples. Let's revisit this menu more in depth to see what it has in store for us.

In lesson #6, the Curve menu allowed us to swing the color and contrast together to make simple and radical changes in your image. But what if the mid-tones are the only area you want to change? This brings us back to the Levels menu. Like the last lessons, we still need to recap the beginning portions...

Here are a couple of key points about the Levels menu.

Always use this tool conservatively -it is very easy to go overboard in adjustments and find out later that you have compromised the original quality of the detail and true color.
Never use this tool more than once per image -if you do, you will soon find out what posterization means (the inability to display even color gradations).
If the image is too high contrast already, using this tool improperly may totally reverse what you actually wanted to correct.
If you push the shadow and highlight adjustments toward each other, you will compromise the image quality in subtle ways that may not be immediately apparent... try to stick with the mid-tone control.
You can actually correct for lighting problems by using the individual channel adjustments. By dropping down the RGB to control the Blue channel, you can modify cool lighting issues by sliding the mid-tone control to the right, toward yellow, which warms the image.
If you want to control the neutral or gray areas of an image, use the Red and/or Green channels to slightly change the tone of the gray space.
Lastly, the black area in the menu is called an image histogram, the shape of the image data from low to high across the 256 levels of gray. After you have made an adjustment, save and go back into this same menu, you will see that the black area may have vertical lines in it... these are the areas of compression you have just manipulated.

Remember, this tool is powerful... by using little adjustments, you will greatly improve your images.
Enjoy the next lesson....

Once again, I will demonstrate with one of my Meredith Bay in the Springtime image. For the sake of this lesson, I have created a less than perfect version of the same picture to show how the Levels menu can be applied.

When the Levels menu opens, all of the sliders are exactly in their default positions. This is true anytime you open this menu... this is their default state. You'll also notice that the Shadows number on the left is always set to 0 and the highlight is always 255... indicating 256 levels. The Mid-Tones slider number is always set to 1.00, an easy number to remember.