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
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…
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.
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!
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.
yes, Ryan – it was introduced in CS.
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