Lesson Info

Understanding Curves

So now let's move on and look at other adjustments that are much more powerful than levels. Levels is very useful, but I think there's something that could be dramatically more useful. And that is, as I work my way down this adjustment menu, I get beyond levels and I find curves. Curves is the ultimate tonal adjustments. You can do things that no other adjustment conduce. And in fact, the other adjustments we use thus far are actually using curves behind the scenes to do the work that they dio. And they're just trying to present you with a simpler screen, a simpler interface to interact with. But if you want full control, you want to use curves. Now. Curves is something that is not easy to learn on your own, but I'll get you toe, understand how it works, and it will take you practice before you are good with it. But the practice, I think, is worth it because you'll get ultimate control over your images. So in curves, let's see how this works Well, if you look at curves, it's a diagonal...

line going across a grid, and at the bottom is a Grady int that has all the brightness levels you could have in your picture. And in fact, most of the time this Grady it will be reversed where black will be on the left. It's only because I have a, um, a grayscale picture that it's reversed. If I take this image and converted Targhee be the vast majority of images we're gonna work on will be RGB in. Therefore, if I go into curves after that, now you see black is on the left. Whereas a moment ago it was reversed. Why is that? Well, when you're working with gray scale, it's thinking about Inc And when you're working in RGB is thinking about light. The two are opposite of each other. Ah, 100% light is the same as 0% Inc and therefore it flips it. It'll make sense in a few moments. So we have that Grady. And at the bottom, then the diagonal line is just telling you how much light would be used to create the shades you see down here. So to create black, this is all the way at the bottom because you would use no light whatsoever to create something this bright. If you go straight up. You'd use this much light compared to the amount you could use, which is all the way to the top. And as you work your way this way, you see the curve above that diagonal line that IHS gets higher and hired. Indicate you'd use mawr and mawr, inm or light. And once you get to white, the curve is all the way at the top because you've maxed it out. You can't get any brighter than white, so you can't go any higher than that, so this would be as high as you could possibly go. The way I think of it is, since it's talking about light, I think about a dimmer switch if you go to your kitchen and you find that one of your, uh lights is on a dimmer, and it's not the kind that's a knob. Instead, it's the kind you push up and down. It's just like curves. If you move that dimmer all the way to the bottom, it turns the lights off in the room is solid black. You can't see a thing and listers windows. Then, as you move the slider up, you add more light into gets brighter. And once you max out, that slider is high as it can go, it's not possible to make the room any brighter without adding some other light source in. In the case of Photoshopped, the brightest we can get is white, so we'll get it all. The way to the top is white, so just think of it as picking one of these shades and then going straight up until you hit the diagonal line, and that tells you how far up the dimmer switch would be. You're not as high as he could possibly go because it's not white. You're not having lights turned off your somewhere in between. All right, then what can I do with this? Well, you can move your mouse on your image. And if you click this little hand icon that's in the lower left, then that means that if I move my mouse over my image, it should think about curbs. And so when I go over my image, you'll see a circle and curbs in. The only thing that circle is doing is it's telling me how much light is in the various areas. I put my mouse on top of. So if you're to go straight down from wherever that circle is appearing and you look at that bar that spans the bottom, it would be sitting directly above the exact shade my mouse is on. So it's just telling me how much light is in each area. Well, this doesn't sound too exciting yet. What if I want to make two of these bars exactly the same brightness level, but I want to leave all the other bars alone. I can do that if I want to take this bar and I want to take this bar, get them to be the exact same brightness level. I could do it very quickly and easily and curves, and then I can take the other bars and get them back, but where they used to be, This is close to that if you know what you're doing, and I haven't described enough yet for you to know what you're doing. But let me turn preview off years before here's after. Do you see those two bars that became identical? It looks like the brightest part of the image is getting a little too Ah, dark. So I have toe adjust that, too. But let's then say instead, I want to do the opposite. I want just those two bars to look more dramatically different from each other than they used to. Well, let's start over here and I want to make this bar brighter. Gotta turn on this little hand, make this bar brighter, make this bar darker. There is a greater difference between the two. I can easily do that. Then I want the other bars to go a little bit back to where they were. Not exactly, but closer. I have control over that kind of stuff, and I have none of that control. When I'm in levels or brightness and contrast, I can't click on my picture and say, Think about this brightness level and do something specific on Lee that brightness level

Class Description

Lessons

1. Introduction To Adobe Photoshop 2020
2. Bridge vs. Lightroom
3. Tour of Photoshop Interface
4. Overview of Bridge Workspace
5. Overview of Lightroom Workspace
6. Lightroom Preferences - Saving Documents
7. How To Use Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop 2020
8. Overview of Basic Adjustment Sliders
9. Developing Raw Images
10. Editing with the Effects and HLS Tabs
11. How to Save Images
12. Using the Transform Tool
13. Making Selections in Adobe Photoshop 2020
14. Selection Tools
15. Combining Selection Tools
16. Using Automated Selection Tools
17. Quick Mask Mode
18. Select Menu Essentials
19. Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
20. Align Active Layers
21. Creating a New Layer
22. Creating a Clipping Mask
23. Using Effects on Layers
24. Using Adjustment Layers
25. Using the Shape Tool
26. Create a Layer Mask Using the Selection Tool
27. Masking Multiple Images Together
28. Using Layer Masks to Remove People
29. Using Layer Masks to Replace Sky
30. Adding Texture to Images
31. Layering to Create Realistic Depth
32. Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020
33. Optimizing Grayscale with Levels
34. Adjusting Levels with a Histogram
35. Understanding Curves
36. Editing an Image Using Curves
37. Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment
38. Dodge and Burn Using Quick Mask Mode
39. Editing with Blending Modes
40. Color Theory
41. Curves for Color
42. Hue and Saturation Adjustments
43. Isolating Colors Using Hue/Saturation Adjustment
44. Match Colors Using Numbers
45. Adjusting Skin Tones
46. Retouching Essentials In Adobe Camera Raw
47. Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush
48. Retouching with the Clone Stamp
49. Retouching with the Healing Brush
50. Retouching Using Multiple Retouching Tools
51. Extending an Edge with Content Aware
52. Clone Between Documents
53. Crop Tool
54. Frame Tool
55. Eye Dropper and Color Sampler Tools
56. Paint Brush Tools
57. History Brush Tool
58. Eraser and Gradient Tools
59. Brush Flow and Opacity Settings
60. Blur and Shape Tools
61. Dissolve Mode
62. Multiply Mode
63. Screen Mode
64. Hard Light Mode
65. Hue, Saturation, and Color Modes
66. Smart Filters
67. High Pass Filter
68. Blur Filter
69. Filter Gallery
70. Adaptive Wide Angle Filter
71. Combing Filters and Features
72. Select and Mask
73. Manually Select and Mask
74. Creating a Clean Background
75. Changing the Background
76. Smart Object Overview
77. Nested Smart Objects
78. Scale and Warp Smart Objects
79. Replace Contents
80. Raw Smart Objects
81. Multiple Instances of a Smart Object
82. Creating a Mockup Using Smart Objects
83. Panoramas
84. HDR
85. Focus Stacking
86. Time-lapse
87. Light Painting Composite
88. Remove Moire Patterns
89. Remove Similar Objects At Once
90. Remove Objects Across an Entire Image
91. Replace a Repeating Pattern
92. Clone from Multiple Areas Using the Clone Source Panel
93. Remove an Object with a Complex Background
94. Frequency Separation to Remove Staining and Blemishes
95. Warping
96. Liquify
97. Puppet Warp
98. Displacement Map
99. Polar Coordinates
100. Organize Your Layers
101. Layer Styles: Bevel and Emboss
102. Layer Style: Knockout Deep
103. Blending Options: Blend if
104. Blending Options: Colorize Black and White Image
105. Layer Comps
106. Black-Only Shadows
107. Create a Content Aware Fill Action
108. Create a Desaturate Edges Action
109. Create an Antique Color Action
110. Create a Contour Map Action
111. Faux Sunset Action
112. Photo Credit Action
113. Create Sharable Actions
114. Common Troubleshooting Issues Part 1
115. Common Troubleshooting Issues Part 2
116. Image Compatibility with Lightroom
117. Scratch Disk Is Full
118. Preview Thumbnail