220 DARKROOM TECHNIQUES ON THE DESKTOP ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 6 FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS Altering specific tones >> Images with bright highlights often need a little curve tweak to darken these tones without changing the white and black points of the picture. 7.13 Elements' Curves features Suitable for Elements ­ 5.0 | Difficulty level ­ Intermediate | Resources ­ Web image 713 | Menu used ­ Enhance One of the regular complaints from Photoshop enthusiasts trying to put Elements users in their place is that the program `doesn't contain curves' and so can't really be considered as a serious photo enhancement package. For the first four versions of the program this was indeed true, but in 5.0 Adobe included an easy-to-use version of Photoshop's famous Curves feature. This is great news as the Curves feature in Photoshop does offer a great deal of flexibility and creativity over manipulating the tones in your image. In particular, curves provide a great way to lighten shadow areas and darken highlights and it is precisely these two tasks that I use Curves for most. In version 6 curves has been revamped and now has a simpler interface. Adjust Color Curves feature The Adjust Color Curves feature contains two different ways to manipulate the tones in your photo. The first is a series of enhancement presets, called Styles, that apply specific curve tweaks to your photos. These adjustments include the options to Increase Midtones, Lighten Shadows, Increase Contrast, Darken Highlights, create a Solarize effect and compensate for Backlight in a photo. Selecting one of these options adds the selected adjustment to the photo. Choosing a second option replaces the first tonal tweak with the second curves adjustment. The second way to alter the tones in your photo when using the new Adjust Color Curves feature is via a set of four slider controls coupled with a graphical curves display located in the Adjust section. The sliders controls include Adjust Highlights, Midtone Brightness, Midtone Contrast and Adjust Shadows options. Moving any of the sliders directly alters the way that the tones are distributed in your photo and changes the shape of the curve. Using these controls you can fine-tune specific areas of your photo. Book resources at: www.adv-elements.com