The basics

188 ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 5.0 FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS
DARKROOM TECHNIQUES ON
THE DESKTOP
Fill Flash effects >> The Shadows/Highlights option
introduced in version 3.0 of Elements also easily
lightens the shadows of contrasty photos without
affecting the mid and highlight tones in the picture.
Like the new Adjust Color Curves feature, Shadows/
Highlights is useful for lightening the shadows in
backlit images such as this beach example.
Both options provide a Fill Flash effect which takes
its name from the technique of using an on-camera
fl ash in daylight to lighten the shadows caused by
direct sunlight. This way of working is popular with
photojournalists who in their haste to capture hard
news images have little time to modify the lighting
on their subjects.
Curves like control via the Shadows/Highlights feature
The Shadow/Highlights tool can also be used to alter specifi c tonal ranges in your photos. It
contains three sliders – the upper one is for lightening shadows, which replaces the old Fill Flash
tool (included up to version 2.0), the control in the middle darkens highlights and is a substitute
for the old Adjust Backlighting tool (included up to version 2.0) and the fi nal slider adjusts mid
tone Contrast. Moving the Shadows control to the right lightens all the tones that are spread
between the middle values and black.
Sliding the Highlights control to the right darkens those tones between middle values and white.
The beauty of this feature is that unlike the Brightness/Contrast tool, these changes are made
without altering other parts of the picture. To fi ne-tune the tonal changes a third slider is also
included in the dialog. Moving this Mid tone control to the right increases the contrast of the
middle values and movements to the left decrease the contrast making the image ‘fl atter’.
Book resources at: www.adv-elements.com