OKAY, THEY'RE REALLY NOT CALLED THAT, BUT EACH ADJUSTMENT LAYER COMES WITH ITS OWN MASK BUILT RIGHT IN The other most popular "non-destructive" form of image editing is to use an adjustment layer for your tonal editing, rather than applying the adjustments directly to your photo, which changes (bruises) your pixels. What that means is basically this: Normally, when you want to adjust the contrast or color in a photo, you'd probably use either Levels or Curves, right? The problem with using these two is that any adjustment permanently changes the pixels in your photo. However, instead of applying them directly to your photo, you can apply them on the layer above your photo (called an adjustment layer), which has four main advantages. (1) It doesn't permanently change your pixels. You can delete the adjustment layer at any time (just like you would any other layer) and any changes you applied with Curves or Levels will be gone right along with it. (2) You can change your changes, meaning once you've applied a Curves, Levels, or other adjustment layer change, you can go back later (hours later even), and tweak your original adjustment. (3) You can save adjustment layers with your document, and make changes days, even weeks later (not so with the History palettewhen you close the document, your undos are gone forever). And most importantly, (4) each adjustment layer comes with its own mask (just like a layer mask). Here's a quickie on how to put them to use. Step 1. | OPEN A PHOTO THAT HAS AN ELEMENT THAT YOU WANT TO ADJUST (IN THIS CASE, HIS SHIRT) Open a photo that has an element that you want to adjust. In this case, we're going to change the color of the man's shirt, but this technique works the same no matter which adjustment layer you choose. So, you'll also use this technique for selectively applying Curves and Levels adjustments, and things like that. The reason I chose Hue/Saturation for this project is that the change is so easily seen, even in small screen captures. Once the photo is open, choose Hue/Saturation from the Create New Adjustment Layer pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette.
©ISTOCKPHOTO/EVA SERRABASSA | | | Step 2. | ADD A HUE/SATURATION ADJUSTMENT LAYER, CLICK COLORIZE, MOVE THE HUE SLIDER TO THE RIGHT When the Hue/Saturation dialog appears, click on the Colorize checkbox, then drag the Hue slider to the right until the photo has a blueish/purplish tint to it (like the one shown here), then click OK. Now, look in the Layers palette and you'll see the adjustment layer and its mask channel, which is filled with white (by default). Since it's filled with white, the full effect is revealed, which makes the entire photo look blue. | Step 3. | FILL THE ADJUSTMENT LAYER'S MASK WITH BLACK TO CONCEAL THE BLUE. PAINT IN WHITE TO REVEAL IT To hide the blue version of the photo, all you have to do is press X to set your Foreground color to black and press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace), which fills the adjustment layer's mask with black, because "black conceals," right? To make the blue version of the photo visible just where you want it (on his shirt), switch your Foreground color to white, and begin painting over the shirt with the Brush tool (as shown here). Again, you can use the same principle with any adjustment layer. If instead you had used Curves and darkened the entire image, you could fill the mask with black to hide the darker version, then paint in white over just the areas you wanted to be darker. | |