Photoshop image adjustments

In Chapter 2 we explored the use of Basic panel adjustments in Camera Raw to optimize a photo before it is opened in Photoshop as a rendered pixel image. The following section is all about the main image adjustment controls in Photoshop and how you can use these to fine-tune your images, or use them as an alternative to working in Camera Raw, such as when editing camera shot JPEGs or scanned TIFFs directly in Photoshop. If you intend bringing your images in via Camera Raw, it can be argued that Photoshop image adjustments are unnecessary, since Camera Raw provides you with everything you need to produce perfectly optimized photos. Even so, you will still find the information in this chapter important, as these are the techniques every Photoshop user needs to be aware of and use when applying things like localized corrections. The techniques discussed here should be regarded as essential foundation skills for Photoshop image editing. However you bring your images into Photoshop, you will at some point need to know how to work with the basic image editing tools such as Levels and Curves. So, for now, let’s look at some basic pixel image editing principles and techniques.