Image Adjustments
You’ve created your painting. These functions can now help you to edit the colours, values and shapes in your image
1 Adjustments
One essential facet of the Photoshop experience is the Image >Adjustments menu. All of the options in here make it possible to adjust your layers or selections in different ways, and like with the Filter menu I’ll be going over the ones I use most.
2 Levels
The Levels option enables you to control the contrast in your image with five sliding cursors. The top three under Input Levels adjust the intensity of your dark values (the black, left cursor), middle values (grey middle cursor), and highlights (white left cursor), while the bottom sliders will limit the amount of dark and light in your layer or selection, moving everything towards middle values.
3 Color Balance
Color Balance, as you may have guessed, works in a similar way but with chroma. Select the tonal range you want to work with from the bottom of the window and adjust the sliders to tweak the hues. If you want to cool down your shadows, warm your highlights or just make something more green, then it’s worth trying out.
4 Hue and Saturation
The Hue/Saturation tool offers something a bit in between the last two. Using the Hue slider will change all the colours at once. The Saturation bar adjusts the intensity of your colours, with the left side leaving only a black and white image and the right creating a psychedelic experience. The Lightness slider will raise and lower all the values. Often while adjusting the values in an area the saturation becomes less appealing, so using all three bars together is key.
5 Combining layers
Creating a copy of whatever layer you’re adjusting will enable you to compare your changes. You can also erase away whichever is on the higher layer to reveal the one below, so that the parts of the adjustment that aren’t working as well can be removed. Merge layers when you’re finished to keep things organised.