› › PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND
> KELBY ONE.COM
[ 99 ]Step Eight: Now we need the
midtone values. Midtones are
important to get right because
that’s what most people will per-
ceive first when looking at your
image. If you trust your eye, you
can simply c lick to place a color
stop between the other two
stops, and then use the Color
Picker to sample from the image
from what you feel is a good
representation of the midtones.
Again, adjust the Location value
of the stop to match the Bright-
ness value of the color.
Alternatively, you can find the
midpoint between the shadow
and highlight stops by adding
their Location values together
then dividing by two. In this case
that would be (86 +18)/ 2 = 52.
Place a stop close to this location
(I chose 49% because it looked
better), then open the Color Picker
and sample around the area until
you find something close to your
selected Brightness in the HSB
readouts. It doesn’t have to be
precise, since you can update the
Location value. The important
element is to sample a color you
want for all midtones.
You should check the Color
Picker to see that the shadow and
midtone color stops have similar
hue and saturation values. Satura-
tion will drop off dramatically for
highlights, even while hue stays
mostly the same. Click OK to
close the Gradient Editor.