Where is curves in photoshop

To do this, drag the curve up in the shadows on the left. Notice how we used multiple points to gently bring the curve back to the default position. This helps to prevent the curve from affecting the highlights or midtones.

This allows us to make the seagull brighter without darkening or lightening the clouds. Try to avoid using big, steep curves. Whenever the curve moves too far away from the diagonal line, it can create problems with the image.

In the example below, notice how the curve dramatically changes direction near the middle. This causes a significant loss of detail in the midtones, giving the seagull a flat, unnatural look. If you're new to curves, you may want to select one of the Preset options and make small adjustments to the curve as needed. If you need to start over, you can select Default from the Preset menu. If you're using Photoshop Elements, you won't be able to create a Curves adjustment layer, but there is a similar tool you can use.

You can then click and drag the sliders to adjust the curve. Try using some of the different options from the Preset menu, then move points on the curve to see the effect. There will be times when you'll want to adjust the colors in an image. For example, you may want to modify the color intensity or even change colors for artistic effect.

If the colors in your image are dull or muted , you can increase the saturation to make them look more vivid.

On the other hand, you can reduce the saturation to make the colors less vivid. If you remove the saturation completely, it will produce a black-and-white , or grayscale , image. Then click and drag the Saturation slider in the Properties panel to increase or decrease the saturation. Drag the slider in the interactive below to adjust the saturation of the image. Careful, though!

Too much saturation will cause the image to lose detail. For best results, we recommend using the Chrome web browser with these interactives. Increasing the saturation can sometimes look a bit unnatural.

Vibrance lets you boost the saturation for the parts of the image that are less colorful without oversaturating the parts that are already colorful. Take the saturation to the highest and lowest settings to see the effect.

Try to find the setting that looks best for the image. As we mentioned above, removing the saturation completely by setting it to will create a black-and-white image.

However, this method doesn't give you much control over how the black-and-white version will look. For better results, you can create a Black and White adjustment layer. Because black-and-white photos don't have colors, the tones the different shades of gray are especially important.

A Black and White adjustment layer allows you to control how the different colors are mixed to create specific tones, which can make a significant difference in how the final image looks.

Note the transition at the sun's border. In general, the highlight transition can be made more gradual by decreasing the curve's slope at the far upper right corner. Move your mouse over each of the images below to see what would have happened if this curve had been applied to the RGB channel. Note how color saturation is greatly decreased and increased for the inverted S-curve and the regular S-curve, respectively.

In general, curves with a large slope in the midtones will increase color saturation, whereas a small slope will decrease it. Changes in saturation may be desirable when brightening shadows, but in most other instances this should be avoided. Another benefit is that it can make your curves adjustment more subtle. This is accomplished by reducing the opacity appropriately circled in red above. This is particularly useful because small changes in anchor points sometimes yield too much of a change in the image.

Finally, you can continually fine-tune the curve without changing the actual image levels each time — thereby reducing posterization. Although all curves thus far have been applied to RGB values or luminosity, they can also be used on individual color channels as a powerful way of correcting color casts in specific tonal areas. Let's say your image had a bluish color cast in the shadows, however both the midtones and highlights appeared balanced.

Changing the white balance or adjusting the overall color to fix the shadows would inadvertently harm the other tones. The above example selectively decreases the amount of blue in the shadows to fix the bluish color cast. Make sure to apply anchor points along the diagonal for all tonal regions which you do not wish to change. If you do not require precise color adjustments, the curves tool is probably overkill.

Alternatively, overall color casts can be fixed using the "Snap Neutral Midtones" setting under the options button. This works best for images whose average midtone color is roughly neutral; photos with an overabundance of one color such as one taken within a forest should use other methods such as white balance in RAW or with the levels tool. This tutorial has discussed contrast as if it were always desirable, however this depends on subject matter, atmosphere and artistic intent.

There may be cases where one would wish to deliberately not use the entire tonal range. These may include Images taken in fog, haze or very soft light as they often never have fully black or white regions. Contrast can emphasize texture or enhance subject-background separation, however harsh or overcast light can result in too much or too little contrast, respectively.

For related reading, please visit: Using "Levels" in Photoshop. Want to learn more? Discuss this and other articles in our digital photography forums. This is true, for example, when adjusting a mask. While most of the keyboard shortcuts are the same as when using a Curves Adjustment layer, these might also be helpful:.

Command -click Mac Control -click Win in the image to set a point on the curve. Blend Modes — Changing the blend mode of a Curves or Levels adjustment layer on the Layers panel from Normal to Luminosity will restrict the adjustment to only change the luminosity grayscale value of the image, thereby eliminating an color shift that might otherwise take place.

Then, you can always disable or delete the mask to apply the effect over the entire image. This produces a different result based on the area selected than if the Curve adjustment layer was added to the image without a selection and the Auto button clicked.