Adjusting Contrast
This is a neat way to add 'Thickness' to your photo. A photo without any contrast appears flat and dull so this is an important style to adopt. As well, it can easily be overdone so small adjustments will get you further here!
In this section, you will become familiar with editing photos in order to try and fix some common issues that amateur photos will bring. You must learn how to balance contrast levels and to try to regulate a photo's properties. The image shown below is also available as a downloadable file and you must fix the contrast to the best of your ability.
Step 1
Download the photo above and import that into Photoshop - Once you have imported the photo, quickly save the project by saving it in your H: Drive. Give it a title that you can easily identify such as "Contrast Adjustment - <Your Name>".
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Step 2
Duplicate your layer in the Layers palette. Once that is complete, you will need to add a curves adjustment layer by clicking the half-full circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choosing "Curves"
Step 3
Once the Curves window is open you have a few options. I like to create an 'S-Curve' to increase the constrast - basically decreasing and creating punchier blacks while also increasing the whites to increase highlights. You can do this by simply clicking about 1/3 the way up the linear graph and dragging down, and then clicking 2/3's the way up and dragging up. This will essentially create a slight 'S' in the graph.
Below is a before and after of what the S-Curve does.
Below is a before and after of what the S-Curve does.
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At this point you can say you are done! However, there is another way to adjust contrast by using the eyedroppers in the Curves adjustment window.
You might remember that we used the 'Gray' eyedropper in the colour balance tutorial - this time we are going to us the white and blacks.
You might remember that we used the 'Gray' eyedropper in the colour balance tutorial - this time we are going to us the white and blacks.
Bonus Step
Using the eyedroppers is easy. All we have to do is tell Photoshop what should be white and what should be black in the photo. Check out the GIF below to learn what I did.
White Level - I chose the white in her eye
Black Level - I chose the dark background above her head.
White Level - I chose the white in her eye
Black Level - I chose the dark background above her head.
