Access Digital Photography

Sometimes your digital camera doesn’t do a scene justice. When you open the image in Photoshop, it appears somewhat drab and colorless compared to what you remember. You can easily make the image pop with just a few steps. Here’s how:

1. Copy the background layer by pressing Ctrl+J (Windows) or Cmd + J (Macintosh).
2. Select the new layer and then choose Image | Mode | Lab Color. After choosing this option, a warning dialog appears telling you that changing color modes can affect the appearance of layers. The dialog box gives you the option of flattening layers.
3. Choose Don’t Flatten.
4. With the copied layer still selected, choose
   Image | Apply Image. This opens the Apply Image dialog box. The default option is to apply the command to Merged layers.
5. Choose Layer 1 from the Layer drop down menu and then click OK. At this stage, the image may be too dark.
6. If necessary, change the opacity of Layer 1.
7. Choose Image | Mode | RGB.

The following image shows the scene before enhancing image tonality. It’s rather drab, not at all how I remember the crisp Winter day.

Here’s the image after enhancing tonality. This is how I remember the scene.

No pixels were harmed or destroyed while creating this tutorial.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Photoshop Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.