Photoshop tutorial: Using Adjustment Layers

Take a look at the image and its inherent problems. It's well composed, but the colors and tone are dull and the image is bland. Not one single adjustment will solve the problems with the water, trees and sky all at once. So we use separate adjustments with masking.		Problems: Too dull Not enough contrast Incorrect water color

Let's fix the dull water first. Select the background Layer. On the Layers palette, click on the Adjustment Layer button and select Photo Filter. Select a Cooling Filter (82) (1) and set the density to 32 (2). This Applies a blue-green tint to the whole image, matching the water to the natural color of Green Lake.

This changed the whole image, and we only want it to apply to the water. Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to draw a box around the sky and trees, leaving the water unselected (3). Rename the Photo Filter 1 adjustment layer (you just created) to "Water" (4) and click on the white mask for that layer (5).

Set your foreground color to black and use the Paint Bucket tool to fill in the Marquee Selection (6). This will change the sky and trees back to their original shades. Notice how the area you painted black shows up in the mask preview in the Layers Palette

Now let's fix the sky. First, remove the Marquee you used in the last step by pressing Ctrl-D on the keyboard. Add another Adjustment Layer. This time use a Levels Adjustment Layer. While adjusting the Levels, concentrate on the sky and ignore the changes to the trees and water. Drag the Black Point slider to the right to increase the shadows in the clouds and give the sky some definition (7). I used an Input Level of about 80.	Moving the Black Point slider tot he right will increase the shadows of an image.	Keep your eye on the sky and ignore the rest of the image in this step.

The sky looks great, but Levels totally screwed up the rest. So let's use the mask to turn off the adjustment and paint it to only where we need it. Rename the Levels 1 adjustment layer (you just created) to "Sky" and click on the white mask for that layer. Press Ctrl-I to invert the Mask. Invert will make this white mask black and the adjustment will be hidden by the black. Set your foreground color to White and use the Paint brush tool to paint over the sky with the levels adjustment.	If you make a mistake, change your brush color to black and paint over your mistake, it will hide it again. *You can switch easily between the foreground and background colors by hitting the X key on your keyboard.*

And finally, the trees. The tress just need a bit more color. So add a new Adjustment Layer for Hue/Saturation. Editing the Master channel, increase the saturation to 10 (7).

Now, at the top of this window, change Master to Yellow to edit the Yellow colors only and decrease the Hue to -5. You'll notice the yellows (and some of the greens) will become more orange.

The trees look better, but those adjustments were also added to the rest of the image too. So let's use the mask to turn off the adjustment and paint it to only where we need it. Rename that new adjustment layer (you just created) to "Trees" and click on the white mask for that layer. Press Ctrl-I to invert the Mask. Invert will make this white mask black and the adjustment will be hidden by the black. Set your foreground color to White and use the Paint brush tool to paint over the trees with the levels adjustment.	If you make a mistake, change your brush color to black and paint over your mistake, it will hide it again. *You can switch easily between the foreground and background colors by hitting the X key on your keyboard.*	White is painted over the trees, which applies the Adjustment Layer just to that area.

Final Results
The differences are obvious. Adjustment layers enabled us to make major changes to the tone, color and saturation, and isolate those changes to just the spots we needed them. The best part about the changes that we made using adjustment layers is that they can be adjusted or removed at any time! that's right, double click the Adjustment Layer to change the original options, or turn it off through the layers palette.