Outline the steps to adjust images tonal range and colour values using imaging software.

In This Chapter, youll learn on: Identify the tools that manipulates the following: o colour levels o brightness o contrast o shadows o mid-tones o highlights Adjust the images colour levels, brightness, contrast and highlights to improve its aesthetic appeal.

Colour and tonal adjustments There are powerful tools in Photoshop that can enhance, repair, and correct the colour and tonality (lightness, darkness, and contrast) in an image. Most of the adjustments is accessible via Image > Adjustments. However we are introducing adjustments via layers. To do this, go to Layers > New Adjustment Layer or

Colour and tonal adjustments Select which adjustment you need on the on the layers palette (accessible in Window/ Adjustment)

Colour and tonal adjustments It will create an additional layer that contains the adjustment while preserving the original image.

Colour and tonal adjustments The adjustment panel will switch to a new layer with sliders controls for you to fine tune your settings to your image. Some of the common tools for tonal and colour adjustments are Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Vibrance, Hue/Saturation, and Colour balance. Original Image before adding any adjustment layers

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Brightness / Contrast The Brightness/Contrast adjustment lets you make simple adjustments to the tonal range of an image. Moving the brightness slider to the right increases tonal values and expands image highlights, to the left decreases values and expands shadows. The contrast slider expands or shrinks the overall range of tonal values in the image. By adjusting the brightness and contrast, you can make the picture brighter

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Levels The outer two Input Levels sliders map the black point and white point to the settings of the Output sliders. By default, the Output sliders are at level 0, where the pixels are black, and level 255, where the pixels are white. With the Output sliders in the default positions, moving the black input slider maps the pixel value to level 0 and moving the white point slider maps the pixel value to level 255. The remaining levels are redistributed between levels 0 and 255. This redistribution increases the tonal range of the image, in effect increasing the overall contrast of the image. By adjusting the levels, you can also increase the overall contrast between the black and white

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Curves Using curves to obtain colour balance is best for global colour shifts because it compresses/stretches the tonal values across the image. In other words, it achieves an over-all shift in the shadows, midtones, and highlights. For colour correction in a specific tonal range you can use the Colour Balance tool. Adjusting the curves achieve an overall midtones/shadows/highlights shifting

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Vibrance Vibrance adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colours approach full saturation. This adjustment increases the saturation of less-saturated colours more than the colours that are already saturated. Vibrance also prevents skintones from becoming over saturated. Adjusting the Vibrance can make the colours of the image richer or vice versa.

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Hue / Saturation Hue/Saturation lets you adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of a specific range of colours in an image or simultaneously adjust all the colours in an image. This adjustment is especially good for fine-tuning colours in a CMYK image so that they are in the gamut of an output device. Adjusting the hue/saturation can also help create special colour cast/effects.

Colour and Tonal Adjustment: Colour Balance Colour Balance is a general term referring to the fine balancing of the colours in visible light and it is strongly tied to the white balance. White Balance refers specifically to the way the Colour Balance is adjusted so white objects will appear white under any lighting conditions. The human eye is well adapted, in connection with our brains, to adjust the colour information it receives so that objects we know to be white, appear white. If this did not happen, and we processed light as it is, "white" objects would look yellow under tungsten light, green under fluorescents, etc. By adjusting the colour balance, you can alter the white balance to give the image a different look.