Adobe Photoshop - Using Curves

Adobe Photoshop is expensive and complicated to use, however, Adobe has incredible student discounts as Michael mentioned in his post Layers Make Editing Images Easier.

This tutorial will focus on a different feature within Photoshop. You can transform you image in so many ways. Warping, combining images, creating panoramas, changing colors, textures and so much more.

While Michael chose to review layers, I chose to discuss curves in relation to color correction. All you need is a photo, any version of Photoshop (latest version CS5 costs $700) or even Photoshop Elements (Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 costs $100). Luckily, Adobe offers an incredible student discount of $199.99 for Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended. The extended edition helps your work with 3D motion.

Once you import you file, go up to the top menu and click on ‘image’.

Scroll down to ‘adjustments’ and then move over to ‘curves’.

Select ‘curves’. The menu box pops up with a line on a graph. The gray is the color graph.

Press and hold the command key while moving your cursor over to a color (preferably white) and click.

A dot will appear on the graph. Use your arrow keys (up and down) to lighten or darken your image. If you choose, you can choose a light color and then repeat with a dark color.

The easy way out is to press ‘auto’ although this sometimes will skew your colors with a greenish tent. The safest bet is to use the curves on your own adjusting slight amounts at a time.

If you have any questions, a good help forum is available here.