Contrast_plugin_tutorial-mac.pdf

Contrast Photoshop plug-in: master contrast in photoediting

Master contrast in photo editing and graphic design with our Photoshop plug-in

Contrast Editor gives you full control over contrast and lets you preserve those precious mid tones. Separate controls for B/W contrast and

color contrast. General contrast integrates all aspects of contrast into one control. Apply contrast as a graduated effect or only to certain

colors or values.

Mac version is for all versions of Photoshop and Elements and all OS versions.

Windows version is for all versions of Photoshop, Elements, Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Draw,

Illustrator and other software that supports Photoshop plug-ins. See list .

Contrast Editor plug-in - Tutorial

Benefits

of the plug-in

Full control over black and white contrast

Preserve or remove mid tones to any degree

Balance the amount of lights and darks to correct exposure

Quick general contrast integrates color contrast and black and white contrast

Target to any range of brightness or color

Tutorial

Tutorial as pdf

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Products overview

The Contrast Editor plug-in works with these image modes (Windows and Mac)...

8 & 16 bit: RGB, Grayscale, Duotone, CMYK, Multichannel, Lab.

Contrast Editor

filter controls

Here's the Contrast Editor plug-ins controls (Mac). Click the image to

enlarge. The control panel and preview area can be resized by dragging the

edges.

The plug-in divides its contrast editing into three groups:

1. General Contrast

2. Black and White Contrast w. mid tone control

3. Color Contrast

See Windows plug-in

See Mac plug-in

Download Win plug-ins

Download Mac plug-ins

Download tutorials

In addition there are control groups for restricting filtering to a brightness- or

color-range or a graduated effect

Example -

Gain control over

every aspect of contrast

What is contrast control?

Expand range?

Enhancing black and white contrast can be done in several ways. The most common is to make the dark areas darker and the bright areas brighter,

however that has the disadvantage, that you change the range of brightness-values in addition to enhancing contrast. That might be OK, you really

ought to be able to decide if you want it or not.

The contrastless gradient - to be edited with our plug-in below.

Expand range : Make the lights brighter and darks darker.

Contrast Photoshop plug-in: master contrast in photoediting

Or don't Expand

range?

The Power Retouche contrast editor gives you the option to enhance contrast with control of if, and how much, the brightness range should be

expanded. You could preserve it as the original and yet still enhance contrast - I believe Power Retouche Contrast Editor is the only contrast editing

system that gives you that possibility.

You can only do that if you can push the mid tones towards the extremes so there is more of the dark and light - but without making the darks any

darker or the lights lighter.

Don't expand range , yet increase contrast while preserving mid tones

Don't preserve

mid tones

Below is a clear example of what it means to not preserve mid tones at all. It's the same contrast filtering as above

Don't expand range + don't preserve mid tones.

Preserve mid

tones?

Power Retouche Contrast Editor even combines the above possibilities and lets you control range expansion and mid tone preservation at once.

Preserve mid tones with expand range .

The General Contrast control

General Contrast

This is Power Retouche's integration of black/white contrast with color-contrast.

This slider edits contrast of hue, saturation and brightness-range while

preserving the relationships between the three. The example to the right was

filtered with the General Contrast at 100%.

Technically (in the terms of the Munsell color space notation) where black-white contrast moves individual colors

vertically up or down a value axis, and saturation moves the individual colors horizontally along a chroma axis, our

General Contrast will move individual colors diagonally along both simultaneously. This direction has no given

name, though it is so central for any practical color adjustment. For the lack of a name, in either Munsell or The

Uniform Color Scales of Optical Society of America, we simply named it by its apparent effect: General Contrast.

The truth behind the lacking term is that it in reality its a bit more complex than a simple diagonal line. The visually -

and optically - correct change is not achieved by a linear diagonal shift, but rather by a logarithmic curve - with

curvature, start- and end-points varying from hue to hue.

See another example of retouching with general contrast alone at the bottom of this tutorial.

Black/White Contrast

B/W contrast %

The B/W Contrast slider determines how much change should be applied. How

the contrast is changed is set by the following three sliders, so the aesthetic

effect of this slider is determined by them.

This sliders effect also enhances the effect of general contrast.

Black Alert and White Alert will display a uniform color in the preview in those

areas that clip 0.3% towards pure black and 0.3% to pure white. You can

change the color of the alerts by clicking in the colored rectangle displaying the

color of the mask.

Contrast Photoshop plug-in: master contrast in photoediting

Preserve mid

tones %

This slider determines how much the contrast should be changed by altering the contrast of the mid tones.

At the extreme you can split the image into just black and white. Normally you will think in terms of preserving the mid tones rather than enhancing

contrast by separating them.

Original

Pres. mid tones 100%

B&W contrast 100

Pres. mid tones 0

Same settings

Balance

Balance changes the ratio between light and dark in the image..

Balance = 75

Balance = 128 (original)

Balance = 190

Expand range

These sliders determine if and how much the dynamic range should be expanded - in other words how much the contrast should be changed by

making the darks darker and lights lighter.

Dark expanded

Original

Light expanded

Color contrast

This group of controls is straight forward.

Warm contrast targets warm colors (yellow, orange, red).

Cold contrast targets cold colors (cold green, cyan, blue, violet).

Red, Green and Yellow contrast target the respective colors.

When developing the filter we gathered information on what colors to target

from professional digital photographers. You might ask why it's red, green,

yellow, not red, green, blue. This is because the need to retouch blue is usually

a matter of retouching the broader band of cold colors, and we have the "Cold

contrast" slider for that. When retouching warm colors, you may often need to

be able to retouch each color individually. The "Warm contrast" slider

predominantly targets orange. Also red, orange and yellow are the colors of

skin.

Contrast Photoshop plug-in: master contrast in photoediting

Retouch levels

These are common to most Power Retouche plug-ins. They let you determine

the degree the filtering will be applied to lights, mid tones and darks.

Graduated effect

These controls are common for many of the Power Retouche plug-ins. Using

graduated effect will cause the filter to apply it's filtering at full strength in one

side of the image and then fade the effect out towards the other side. You can

change direction by Ctl. clicking the preview. Midpoint will shift the balance

between how large an area will be filtered at full strength and how much will

have a faded out effect. Contrast will change the acceleration and spread of the

fade-out.

In these two examples we applied a graduated effect towards the bottom. The original is flat because there is not enough contrast in the foreground

objects (or more exactly: more contrast in the foreground objects compared to the background). We raised general contrast and warm contrast. Note

how much greater the depth is after this elegant retouch.

Original

Graduated contrast

Contrast Photoshop plug-in: master contrast in photoediting

Ranges

The ranges tab opens the ranges controls. These are common for most

Power Retouche plug-ins.

The controls are described below.

The Mask unchanged checkbox is an aid to setting the limit-sliders. It

applies to both the brightness-range and the color-range. When checked,

areas of the image that are darker than the dark limit or lighter than the

light limit will be shown in the preview as a uniform color. You can change

the color of the mask by clicking in the small rectangle.

Brightness Range

Brightness-range The following sliders become active when the "Use Brightness Range" is checked. This set of controls is common to most of the Power Retouche

plug-ins.

Dark Limit

This slider tells the filter not to alter areas of the image that are darker than the sliders setting (0=black, 255=white).

Light Limit

This slider tells the plug-in not to alter areas of the image, that are lighter than the sliders setting (0=black, 255=white).

Target

This tells the plug-in which value between the dark and light limits shall be changed the most.