ADVANCED IMAGE EDITING SKILLS
P
hotoshop Elements’ image-adjusting tools and
commands are great for overcoming camera-
related problems, which is just as well, because
most photos will benefit from a little post-
production tweaking to improve colour and tone. Unlike the
human eye, the camera isn’t adept at dealing with high-
contrast scenes. For example, when shooting a landscape,
your camera may struggle to get a balanced exposure due to
the contrast between the bright sky and the ground. Its auto
metering mode may set the aperture and shutter speed to
capture detail in the darker ground, but this will cause the
highlights in the sky to over-expose and lose detail. If the
camera tries to capture bright sky detail, it can turn thelandscape into an under-exposed silhouette. Elements’
main menu has a handy Enhance section that gives you
access to tone-tweaking tools such as the Levels command.
These commands can do a good job of clawing back missing
shadow detail. However, once you’ve changed the colours
and tones of an image then you’re stuck with the results,
especially if you replace the original file with the edited
version when you save it.
Fortunately, you can apply many of the main menu
commands as adjustment layers. These image-editing layers
float above the original photo layer in the Layers panel.
Adjustment layers are very versatile. You can turn them on
and off to compare the edited shot with the original.Non-destructive edits
Use versatile adjustment layers to selectively target
and tweak the colours and tones of an image
AFTER
BEFORE
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