Levels often seems like a boring old tool in photo-editing programs. Maybe you’d use it to quickly fine-tune contrast by dragging the left and right sliders inwards. But it’s good for much more than that.
If you want to manipulate the light and color information in an image using Photoshop, two of the most common tools for the task are Curves and Levels. But how do these two adjustments actually differ? And when might you choose to use one instead of the other? That's exactly what Aaron Nace explains in this helpful video.
Here's a 6-minute video from PiXimperfect that looks at the difference between the Levels and Curves functions in Photoshop. While the two may seem similar in purpose, there are some very clear differences between them.
I have been taking pictures for almost twenty years now and so much has changed over those years. Back in the beginning gas used to cost $1.00, Bill Clinton was president, and I was picking up a camera for the first time. I started out in high school playing with my father’s Nikon FM2 and taking pictures for the school newspaper. Today, I work with a medium format digital back shooting national ad campaigns, magazine articles, and catalogs. Some aspects of how I photograph have stayed unchanged, but a great deal has changed considerably.
Adding a vignette to a photograph can add depth to the composition and draw attention to interesting details. However, …