Using Adjustment Layers to Tweak Your Photos

It's our control over fire--and perhaps our ability to marinate--that separates humans from animals. Likewise, it's the ability to edit photos in layers that separates digital photography from old-school film photography.

Last week, I discussed the basics of using layers. I talked about how to layer two different photos, culminating in a simple special effect. This week I'd like to continue with an overview of using adjustment layers in a different and somewhat more practical way. Specifically, we'll edit a photo by adjusting some aspect of it--like exposure or tone, for example--in a layer. As usual, I'll show you how to do this in Adobe Photoshop Elements, but any photo editing program with layer support will work.

Introduction to Adjustment Layers

Open the photo that you want to edit in Photoshop Elements. In the menu, choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, and note your options.

If you are trying to improve your photo's exposure, you'll probably want to use Levels (which lets you make histogram adjustments) or Brightness/Contrast. But you have other options as well. Want to change the color saturation, or even bleach your photo into a nearly monochromatic image? Try Hue/Saturation. And there are other special effects as well to experiment with.

For our example, choose Levels and click OK on the New Layer dialog box. You should see the Levels control, which you can manipulate to improve the exposure of you photo.

Adjust the white point, black point, and gamma to taste. For help, read "Punch Up Photos With the Histogram" and "Perfect Photos Every Time." When you are satisfied with the results, click OK.

The Magic of Adjustment Layers

If this were a single-layer photo, we'd be done; anything you did to the levels would now be baked into the original image. But that's the magic of layers--we haven't affected the original photo yet. This technique lets you go a little too far in the adjustment phase but fine-tune the final result. You can now blend the original photo with the adjustment layer using the Opacity control. Click Opacity in the Levels Palette and back off from 100 percent; when you find a combination of the two levels that you like, stop.

One more cool trick: You can save this project as a Photoshop *.psd file when you choose File, Save As. A PSD file retains all the layer details, so you can re-open the file and fine-tune or even discard these adjustment layer edits; the original photo remains untouched. This is a great technique for keeping your original photos pristine. And since we're always learning and getting better at this sort of thing, using a PSD file allows you to return to a photo that you tried to edit a long time ago and improve on it with the benefit of additional knowledge and experience.

Manual Adjustment Layers

What if your photo editing program has some basic layers support, but no "adjustment layers?" Or what if there's no option for the kind of adjustment you'd like to make? No problem; doing it manually is a snap. Suppose you wanted to sharpen a photo, for example. There's no Adjustment Layer menu option for sharpening in Photoshop Elements.

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