essential photoshop tool you may not have noticed

The shadow/highlight tool adjusts shadows and highlights in photos better and easier than any other tool. Still using “Levels” and “Brightness/Contrast” to adjust images? Check out this tool in action.

I have alot of small business owners as clients. Inevitably, they don’t have very good images for their websites. Overwhelming shadows is a common problem. A seminar speaker at the recent flash forward conference in Austin pointed out a tool that was introduced in Photoshop CS, that I - and probably you - totally overlooked.

Here is the shadow/highlight in action…

Before Image - terrible contrast - bad shadow cast
before image with shadow

To find the shadow and highlight tool in Photoshop CS and above, go to Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight…. The standard tool will adjust most images, but if you check “Show more Options” you will see something like this…
Shadow highlight tool

After a quick tweakwith this shadow-highlight, and a few color adjustments, and cropping the important part of image (my nephews), I have a much more usable photo.

adjusted image

About this entry

You’re currently reading “essential photoshop tool you may not have noticed,” an entry on 33Rockers

Published:: 12.06.06 / 9pm

Category:: Jot Down

patra lux December 7, 2006

i especially like the ‘tonal width’ - it tends to adjust the light and the contrast at the same time. This is great… before i had to adjust the lighting then the contrast … 2 moves that are now one move…
Thanks!

Ryan December 7, 2006

I’m an avid user of photoshop, but I only have up to version 7.0. I’m guessing this version is for Photoshop CS and above only? This tip is awesome by the way.

33rockers December 7, 2006

yes, Ryan - it was introduced in CS.

Travis January 29, 2007

I’m an avid PS user and a photography enthusiast. Most photos still look better when adjusted with curves and levels. Using the shadows/highlights tool is good for fine adjustments, and even then you’ll need to increase contrast when using them for relatively fine adjustments. Generally, if you use the shadow/highlight tool, your photos will look unnatural because contrast will be inconsistent for the range of colors that you’ve adjusted – even when adjusting the amount of contrast in conjunction with using the tool… my $.02

33Rockers

essential photoshop tool you may not have noticed

About this entry

4 Comments

Post a Comment »

Comment Guidelines

About

Recently

Monthly Archives

Pages

Worthy Visits