PhotoPlus X6 User Guide - Serif

36 Making Image Adjustments
Overview: Adjusting image colours
PhotoPlus provides a number of different adjustment filters that you can apply
to a selection or to an active standard layer. Typically, these adjustments are used
to correct deficiencies in the original image.
The adjustment can be applied in one of several ways:
• via the Adjustments tab, as an adjustment layer (non-destructive).
• via PhotoFix, a studio environment for managing and applying
cumulative adjustments (non-destructive).
• via Image>Adjust, on a filter layer (non-destructive).
• via Image>Adjust, on a standard layer (destructive).
Here’s a summary of the available PhotoPlus image adjustments:
• Levels: Displays a histogram plot of lightness values in the image, from
which you can adjust the tonal range by shifting dark, light, and
gamma values.
• Curves: Displays lightness values in the image using a line graph, and
lets you adjust points along the curve to fine-tune the tonal range.
• Brightness/Contrast: Brightness refers to overall lightness or
darkness, while contrast describes the tonal range, or spread between
lightest and darkest values.
• Shadow/Highlight/Midtone: Controls the extent of shadows,
highlights, and contrast within the image.
• Hue/Saturation/Lightness: Hue refers to the colour’s tint—what most
of us think of as rainbow or spectrum colours with name associations,
like "blue" or "magenta". Saturation describes the colour’s purity—a
totally unsaturated image has only greys. Lightness is what we
intuitively understand as relative darkness or lightness—ranging from
full black at one end to full white at the other.
• Colourize: Lets you recolour an image using Hue, Saturation, and
Lightness.
• Vibrance: Boosts low-saturation colours in your image, while highsaturation
colours are less affected.