Chapter 6. Image Adjustment Fundamentals: Stretching and Squeezing the Bits

Tonal manipulation—adjusting the lightness or darkness of your images—is one of Photoshop’s most powerful and far-reaching capabilities, and at first it may seem like magic. But there’s nothing magical about it. Once you understand what’s happening as you adjust the controls—it all comes back to those ubiquitous zeros and ones—it starts to look less like magic and more like clever technology. But your increased understanding and productivity should more than make up for any loss of the sense of wonder, and besides, you’ll have more time to play.

Tonal manipulation makes the difference between a flat image that lies lifeless on the page and one that pops, drawing you into ...

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