Photoshop: Adjustment Layers

Adjustment Layers

Adjustment layers allow a non-destructive workflow as they do not directly affect the image and simply act as an overlay of effects, helping you to work flexibly and effectively.

To create an adjustment layer, go to the half black and white circle in the bottom of the layers panel and it will display the list of adjustments that you can make. For these images, I have used the black and white adjustment.

 

This creates a layer without image content that takes effect on all layers beneath it by default. This means that to change which layers it takes effect on, you would rearrange the order of the layers – demonstrated in these images.

After selecting the adjustment, the properties panel should open up, giving you the controls for managing the features of the black and white adjustment. You can use the sliders to change the light or darkness of the selected colour that was in the original photo. For instance, altering the red slider will lighten or darken all of the aspects of the photo that were red in the original.

This properties panel will change depending on what type of adjustment is put in effect, giving you varying options depending on the effect chosen.

    You can also use this targeting tool to choose the colour within the photo that you want to edit.

 

Hue & Saturation

The hue and saturation adjustment allows you to edit some different properties of colour in an image. To bring up this option, go to image on the top bar, hover over the adjustments drop down and select the Hue/Saturation option to open the dialogue box.

The hue slider alters the overall colour of the image

The saturation slider adjusts the intensity of colour in the image.

The lightness slider controls the brightness of colour.

Using the sliders like this makes changes to all of the colours of the image, however, this adjustment allows you to make changes to specific colours in the image as well. By going to the menu labelled master on the dialogue box, and it will show an array of colour ranges to allow you to adjust the hue, saturation and lightness of a specific colour in the image.

For colours that aren’t on the list, you can select the targeting tool and click on the colour within the image that you want to change and then use the sliders.

 

Thanks for reading ~