The control freak in me likes to be able to exercise absolute authority over my images. As part of my regimen, I shoot in camera raw in order to maintain as much control as possible and save the initial camera files on their own hard drive. The first sort is copied as a PSD file to a different drive, and JPG files are derived from the PSD drive and stored on yet another drive. Yet even when shooting this way, I do not always capture a scene the way I envision it. That is where Photoshop comes in. The power of Photoshop lies in the ability to manipulate an image as much or as little as you desire. But if you do this recklessly, you can easily destroy your image. You have a couple of ways to preserve your image, copy the original file or work in layers. I choose to work in layers.
When working in layers, there are a multitude of adjustments you can make without harming the background image directly. Levels, Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Vibrance, and more can be applied either through a layer or directly to the background image (the latter is not a wise choice because you can not undo it if you decide you don’t like it at a later date). To further enhance your ability to play with the image, one can also add masks to any layer so that the adjustment made only affects those parts you intend it to (a feature far more powerful than dodging and burning in the chemical darkroom).
Adjustment layers are made by either going to the drop down menu for layers and selecting “New Adjustment Layer” or by clicking on the half filled circle icon at the bottom of the layers pallet and selecting the style of adjustment you want. You can use many layers and mask them as needed to create the image that satisfies you.
Masks will be discussed in a later article.