Tuesday Tip: Local Adjustments

Often times the added contrast and saturation techniques that I use when editing will darken and even in some steps, lighten certain areas a bit more than I want them. Lindsay has beautiful blue eyes and I want to see them. I have created actions for this that help to combat that. You don’t have to set up an action for this if you don’t want to, however, I have found this something that I use on a regular basis. Here is the example we will work with:

Notice that her face has gotten a bit too dark in the shadow, I just can’t see the detail like I want, both because of the shadow and because of the adjustments I have made previously. So, here is how I solve that issue: 

Step 1: Open an image in Photoshop you wish to adjust locally.

Step 2: Click on the top most layer in your layers palette and go down to the bottom of the layers palette and choose “Levels” from the adjustment layer pull-down menu (half-black, half-white circle). This will open the levels dialogue box. Move the dialogue box so you can see the image and the adjustment box simultaneously. 

Step 3: I want to lighten her eyes, so I am going to move the midtone slider (middle slider) to the left down the histogram. If the preview box is checked you should see the entire image lighten up. Just pay attention to the eyes to get them at a desirable level. Then click “OK” when you are happy.

Step 4: Of course we didn’t want to lighten the entire image, so we are going to use the layer mask to adjust that. Instead of painting the entire image with black and leaving the small face area we will work in reverse. Click on the Levels layer mask to ensure it is selected (empty box in levels layer) and go to Edit>Fill> and choose Black for Contents. Click “OK.”   (keyboard shortcut for mac is command-delete – be sure black is background color) It will now appear that no changes have been made because you have masked out the entire levels adjustment.

Step 5: Select white as your foreground color (keyboard shortcut for mac: hit “d” then “x.”) select a soft  paintbrush tool much smaller than the face area and begin painting over the face area or whatever area needs to be lightened. They should appear lighter. If they are too light, simply lower the opacity of the layer. If they are too dark, double-click back on the levels adjustment icon and increase the lightening by dragging the midtone slider to the left even more.

Here is the finished image with a few added adjustments:

As I said before this works wonderfully for an action. I have set them up for both lightening and darkening. Of course, every image is not the same, so you will have make adjustments, but it gives you a quick starting point.