Sometimes they're other adjustments you want, because if you're working on the extremes of brightness, meaning things that are close to black were close toe white, it's hard to be really precise with the adjustment you're doing. And there are other adjustments that specialize in working on those areas. So in this case, if you look at the waterfall, this is in Iceland and the waterfall is close toe white. And if you look at the rock that's in the lower right of the image, that's pretty darn dark. It's getting close to black, and in those cases, sometimes using curves could be frustrating because it's too easy to get all the water fall to become white or just to make a non smooth adjustment. It's when you're in the middle of the curve that it's really much easier. The extremes that the ends are more difficult to control. So when that's the case, I end up choosing image adjustments. Shadow highlight Now Shadow highlight, unfortunately, is not available as an adjustment layer, so I have to...

choose it from here. In case you're not aware, there are two types of adjustments. One would be in a direct adjustment, which is what you get from this menu image adjustments that applies directly to the layer that's currently active in When you're done, it's permanent. So if you save and closed the image, open it a month later. There's no way to undo the adjustment, whereas an adjustment layer is a layer sitting there floating above your image, and you could always open the image you know a year later and just throw the adjustment away. The image would return to the way it used to look, but there are certain adjustments that are not available. This adjustment layers and shadow highlights is one of them. When you first open it and look like this, and it'll automatically assume that you want to adjust your shadows so this slider, called shadows, will be turned up. I'll turn it all the way down. Then, if I turn preview off and on, you'll see it's not doing anything to my image at the moment. If I bring up the shadows slider, it's gonna brighten up the dark part of the picture. What's nice about it, though, is it's gonna make sure that any area that's black remains black, so it's not going to just start looking like a ghostie kind of weirdness. Then we have a highlight slider. If I bring it up, it's gonna darken the highlights so you could potentially more easily see the detail that was in that area. But right now, with just those two sliders, it's not giving me too much control. Well, there's a check box at the bottom called Show More Options. And if I were to turn that on now, I have more control. Let's see what control it gave us. Well, we still have amount, which is the amount of a change we're making. How much brighter the shadows becoming, or how much darker are the highlights becoming? But then we have a choice called tone, and if I bring tone all the way down, then what it considers to be a shadow is a very narrow brightness range that is really, really close to black. So now if I adjust my amount and move it around, you see that not much of the image changes, and it's mainly the areas that are extremely dark. If I bring tone up higher, then it means let's not just work on that narrow, narrow range, close to black. Let's expand it and get closer and closer to 50% gray. You know a medium brightness level. So as I bring this up more and more of the images affected. So what you might want to do when you're in here is start by bringing up the amount higher than you need, just so you can see that the image has changed. So here's no change in the shadows. Bring it way up. So you see the bright ning. Then move the tone. Bring it all the way down. So that's the narrowest range it could work on. Slowly bring it up until it seems like it's affecting the general range you want. So in my case, maybe about there. Then there's a choice called Radius in Radius controls the transition from that dark area that we are adjusting toe how it blends in with the rest of the image and so you could swing radius low and swinging high. It depends on the picture, as far as what's gonna look best if I get it too high. It looks too dark in that right edge. Bring it to low. It looks artificial, with somewhere in between is gonna give me the best transition. But remember, I brought the amount really high, and I didn't necessarily want that big of an adjustment. So once I've gotten the other things tweaked will probably bring him out, back down and now decide exactly how much bright and do I want. And I could do something similar for the highlights for the highlights. They might start by just bringing this up a lot, so I can easily tell where it's happening. Then we have the same slider cold tone, and it means the same general thing. But in this case, we're talking about the bright portion. So this means between white and what shade should we consider to be. Ah, highlight. The higher I bring it with wider of a range it works on. I don't want it to work too much on the sky and the water. That's not the waterfall portion, so I'll bring this down and adjust it until I noticed not much of that sky changing. Then Radius controls how it blends in with the surrounding image and all experiment low settings, high settings to see on this particular image, what looks best. It really depends on the picture. Then finally, I'm you know, just my amount. I had it cranked up just so I could see what I was working on. And now I confined. Tune it to the side exactly how much of a change I want. And if it's not making enough of a change, I need to go back and fine tune my other sliders. All right. When you have show more options turned on, you get some additional choices down below. Mid tone means what should we do with stuff that is not highlights and is not shadows. Instead, it's the in between shades. How should they look? And so now it could brighten or darken those in between shades. And then we have a choice called color, and color is a little bit interesting. If you bring it down, the colors will look more similar to each other, and as you bring it up, color separate more so in this case, there's not much of a difference in the colors, but if there was blues and greens and reds as you bring color up, you're going to see a much more much more separation between those colors. And if you bring it down the look more like the originally did, so this means we want to separate the colors a bit more, and that's the main thing that's in here. The choices at the very bottom you don't usually need to change. Black clip in white clip. What they do is ensure that the darkest Portia year of your picture becomes really close to black in Same with the bright portion. If you found that you had a foggy seen and when you win in here, it just suddenly had way too much contrast. You could set thes 20 and then it wouldn't attempt to make the dark part really close to black for the bright part, really close toe white. But anyway, shadow Highlight is a specialty tool. I use it when the issue that I have is near the extremes of brightness really close to black, really close toe white. That's when I think about going there, and it's not available as an adjustment layer. Most the time I'm not playing with all those sliders. I'm playing with either the shadows or the highlights. They don't usually need both, uh, and takes a little bit of time to find tune, but I usually like the results that I get from it.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Lessons 1 - 6 - Handbook 1: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

Lessons 7 - 12 - Handbook 2: How to Use Camera Raw

Lessons 13 - 18 - Handbook 3: Making Selections

Lessons 19 - 24 - Handbook 4: Using Layers

Lessons 25 - 30 - Handbook 5: Using Layer Masks

Lessons 31 - 38 - Handbook 6: Using Adjustment Layers

Lessons 39 - 44 - Handbook 7: Color Theory

Lessons 45 - 51 - Handbook 8: Retouching Essentials

Lessons 52 - 59 - Handbook 9: Tools Panel

Lessons 60 - 64 - Handbook 10: Layer Blending Modes

Lessons 65 - 70 - Handbook 11: How to Use Filters

Lessons 71 - 74 - Handbook 12: Advanced Masks

Lessons 75 - 81 - Handbook 13: Using Smart Objects

Lessons 82 - 86 - Handbook 14: Photography for Photoshop

Lessons 87 - 93 - Handbook 15: Advanced Photo Retouching

Lessons 94 - 98 - Handbook 16: Warp, Blend, Liquify

Lessons 99 - 105 - Handbook 17: Advanced Layers

Lessons 106 - 112 - Handbook 18: Actions

Lessons 113 - 117 - Handbook 19: Troubleshooting Issues

Practice Images 1: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

Practice Images 2: How to Use Camera Raw

Practice Images 3: Making Selections

Practice Images 4: Using Layers

Practice Images 5: Using Layer Masks

Practice Images 6: Using Adjustment Layers

Practice Images 7: Color Theory

Practice Images 8: Retouching Essentials

Practice Images 9: Tools Panel

Practice Images 10: Layer Blending Modes

Practice Images 11: How to Use Filters

Practice Images 12: Advanced Masks

Practice Images 13: Using Smart Objects

Practice Images 14: Photography for Photoshop

Practice Images 15: Advanced Photo Retouching

Practice Images 16: Warp, Blend, Liquify

Practice Images 17: Advanced Layers

Practice Images 18: Actions

Practice Images 19: Troubleshooting Issues

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Ben Willmore

As a photographer, Ben Willmore has shot in all 50 states and explored over 80 countries. He has been pushing Photoshop and Lightroom Classic to their limits since the beginning.

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topics covered in this class

Adobe Photoshop Beginner Fundamentals Photo Editing

Ratings and Reviews

Noel Ice

I am an avid reader of photoshop books, and an avid watcher of photoshop tutorials. I have attended (internet) several hundred of presentations. In the course of this endeavor, I have found my own favorite photoshop websites and instructors. Creative Live is probably the bargain out there as well as among the top three internet course sites. I have to say with great enthusiasm that the best Photoshop instructor is Ben Willmore. There are many great ones, but truly, he is the best I have come across, and, as indicated above, I have watched literally 100s of tutorials on Photoshop. I have seen all of Ben's courses, I think, and among them, this one is the best by far, and that is saying a lot, because that makes this course the best course on Photoshop to be found anywhere. I am going back and watching it twice. Not only is it comprehensive, but Ben is so familiar with his subject that he is able to explain it like no other. This is crème de la crème of Photoshop classes. I have been wanting to write this review for some time because I have been so thoroughly impressed with everything about this class!

ford smith

Highly recommended if you want to take your Photoshop skills to the next level. Ben Willmore is clear, concise, and professional. He also has a good speaking voice that is not distracting but also keeps you engaged. Lastly, I would recommend that as you become more advanced, increasing the speed of the video (one of the options given on the menu)...especially if you've gone through the course once before and maybe want to watch it again. The double speed is very efficient as you become more advanced in Photoshop. Thanks for the help Ben!

a Creativelive Student

Wow. I cannot communicate the value of this course!! The true value in this course is how the instructor identifies workflows you'll need before you'll ever realize it, repeats important information without it becoming annoying, and explains the "why" behind the techniques so well that even if you forget the exact method, you can figure it out via the principles learned. Excellent value, excellent material, excellent instructor!!!

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Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment

Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment

Lesson Info

37. Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment

Lessons

Introduction To Adobe Photoshop

Bridge vs. Lightroom

Tour of Photoshop Interface

Overview of Bridge Workspace

Overview of Lightroom Workspace

Lightroom Preferences - Saving Documents

How To Use Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Overview of Basic Adjustment Sliders

Developing Raw Images

Editing with the Effects and HLS Tabs

How to Save Images

Using the Transform Tool

Making Selections in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Selection Tools

Combining Selection Tools

Using Automated Selection Tools

Quick Mask Mode

Select Menu Essentials

Using Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Align Active Layers

Creating a New Layer

Creating a Clipping Mask

Using Effects on Layers

Using Adjustment Layers

Using the Shape Tool

Create a Layer Mask Using the Selection Tool

Masking Multiple Images Together

Using Layer Masks to Remove People

Using Layer Masks to Replace Sky

Adding Texture to Images

Layering to Create Realistic Depth

Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop 2020

Optimizing Grayscale with Levels

Adjusting Levels with a Histogram

Understanding Curves

Editing an Image Using Curves

Editing with Shadows/Highlights Adjustment

Dodge and Burn Using Quick Mask Mode

Editing with Blending Modes

Color Theory

Curves for Color

Hue and Saturation Adjustments

Isolating Colors Using Hue/Saturation Adjustment

Match Colors Using Numbers

Adjusting Skin Tones

Retouching Essentials In Adobe Camera Raw

Retouching with the Spot Healing Brush

Retouching with the Clone Stamp

Retouching with the Healing Brush

Retouching Using Multiple Retouching Tools

Extending an Edge with Content Aware

Clone Between Documents

Crop Tool

Frame Tool

Eye Dropper and Color Sampler Tools

Paint Brush Tools

History Brush Tool

Eraser and Gradient Tools

Brush Flow and Opacity Settings

Blur and Shape Tools

Dissolve Mode

Multiply Mode

Screen Mode

Hard Light Mode

Hue, Saturation, and Color Modes

Smart Filters

High Pass Filter

Blur Filter

Filter Gallery

Adaptive Wide Angle Filter

Combing Filters and Features

Select and Mask

Manually Select and Mask

Creating a Clean Background