Photoshop Tutorial – Black Point

What makes a compelling photograph?  Well, there are quite a number of things and one of them is “Black point”.  But before proceeding, let’s take a quick step backwards.

Photographs look better if they utilize most of not all of the inherent dynamic range of the medium, be that paper, a computer monitor or some other electronic medium.  This is to say that the image has deep shadows, brilliant highlights and the full range of tonalities in between.   It’s the difference between a flat image and an exciting one.  Here’s a nice flat image.

kolob_canyon_flat Kolob Canyon Flat Image

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Photoshop Tutorial – Neutral Grays

On how to adjust an area of a photograph to a neutral shade of black, gray or white.

I got a Photoshop question from Lynne in Iowa, a dear friend for many years.  She asked how you could adjust an area of an image to make it pure white.  I gave her a quick email response that outlined a technique but the question really deserves a more detailed and complete answer.  So, Lynne, this is for you and anyone else who encounters this situation in Photoshop.

In this Photoshop tutorial I am going to show you how to make this correction using an adjustment layer.  This technique actually applies to two situations that are encountered quite often – getting neutral blacks and neutral whites.

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