By
David Rosenthal.
Often a very good photo is ruined because it lacks "pop". This is a way of saying that the image looks flat and boring.
I'm going to use this image to show how to quickly add pop to your flat images. Yes, there are many ways to do this, but we're going to go over a very simple and basic first few steps.
Before we start, let's talk about why this image is flat. First, the image is not using the full range of values that are available. This means nothing is black, and nothing is white. It's all stuck in this sort of gray no man's land.
We're going to fix that.
(NOTE: If you want to follow along with this tutorial, click on the image to get the large size, and then drag to your desktop. You can then use that file to follow along. To get back here, click on the tutorial title in the breadcrumb, above.)
First, let's get ready.
If you go to your Photoshop preferences, you'll see an option for Cursors. Select that option, and the window will open up, giving you many options. We're just going to worry about this one: change your cursors from Standard to Precise.
OK. Now we need to find the black point and the white point.
We do that by using Image>Adjustments>Threshold. This dialog pops up.
Slide the control all the way to the left, until everything is white, and then slowly move it to the right.
You'll start to see little pixels of black show up. Ignore these, as they aren't relevant yet. We're not looking for the absolute blackest pixels, we're looking for the first area of deep, deep shadows that is a recognizable thing.
As you move it farther, you'll start to see the man's hat to take shape. Shift-click in the black of the hat, leaving a marker. This one is labeled number 1. You can have up to 4.
Now slide the control all the way to the right. As you move back to the left, you'll see these dots show up. Ignore these. They are called specular highlights. They are not meaningful for the exposure of this image.
So, as we move on, the next area that shows up is the man's shirt. Place a marker in the white here, too. Remember: shift-click.
Why do we select this area? Because it is the first significant area of visible white.
When you're done, CANCEL Threshold. We're done using it, and don't want to leave our image looking like this.
NOTE: When you're ready to get rid of those pesky little markers, here's what you need to do: make sure you're in the eyedropper tool (or Curves or Threshold), and option-shift-click (alt-shift-click, PC) on each of them. The cursor will look like a little scisssors, and will remove the markers.
We set the black and white points in the curves dialog box.
Go to: Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves, and this dialog box opens up.
There are 3 eyedroppers. Double click on the one on the left, which sets the black point.
By default, this eyedropper is set to the blackest black possible. We don't want this, we're going to work with it at R7G7B7. So in the R,G, and B fields change the values to 7.
You make this change once. Later you'll save this setting, so it'll be there the next time you use the dropper.
Now you're ready to mark the black point. The black eyedropper should still be selected. Place your cursor directly over the marker you left before on the man's hat. You'll know that it's directly on top of the marker when the cursor disapears.
Click on that spot, and you've got your black point set.
Click OK in the curves dialog, and you'll be asked if you want to save the new target colors as defaults. Select Yes.
