Tools to set exposure (levels of light and dark)
Brightness and darkness (what I am referring to when I say exposure) are part of all my workflows. In the workflow that I presented earlier in this chapter, adjusting these values was the second step. We do this early since the brightness of certain areas of the image will affect the colors, focus, and so on. While there are an infinite number of ways to adjust this, I typically use three tools over and over again – they are all Adjustment layers, and they are as follows:
- Exposure Adjustment
- Levels Adjustment
- Curves
These are ranked in terms of complexity, with the top one (Exposure Adjustment) being the easiest, and Curves being the hardest. So, if you are new to editing, please start with the easiest to keep the momentum going.
To minimize variation, we will be working with the same file for all the different adjustment types (the cat on the wall that’s present in Figure 7.3). this way, you can...
