Non-Destructive Image Adjustments

Gradient

Gradient adjustment layer was an interesting tool since you can alter the gradients color but it's proximity as well. Originally it was 90 degrees which the gradient started from the left side and moved towards the right and it was the color black. I decided to make the color lighter and completely reflect the position of the gradient by moving it 180 degrees. The end result was the inverse of the original gradient default which I find to be more appealing when the gradient was starting from the right and reaching towards the left.

Brightness

Using brightness was a simple and yet effective adjustment layer. It can really improve an image as shown here when I lowered the brightness to make the image seem slightly more dim and but less reflective of the light. I found the original image too bright which is why I choose to darken the image so we see more of the colors of the magazine less intrusive light. In retrospect I still believe I made the correct choice in darkening the image. It also makes the image seem more balanced in color and have a perfect lighting that isn't so dark neither so bright. The colors are more vibrant.

Vibrancy

Vibrancy adjustment layer regulates the colors intensity/saturation of the image. This is good to give your picture a mood by making it colder or warmer. The adjustment layer allows you to manipulate the saturation of the entire image. I decided to drain most of the color from the image but leave some of it remaining to make the image to seem cool and cold. To make an image colder you lower the warmth of colors. In a way it seems Depressing or sorrowful by lowering the saturation which makes the image seem more gray and light.

Posturize

Posturize adjustment layer is meant giving your image a whole new look. In my case I had just decreased the levels slider  because by Increasing it I saw no change in my image unless if I was missing something. But When decreasing the levels I saw differences in the color of my image, it seems as if it had decreased the amount colors there were since there is less shades and variations of color. This is evident when seeing the shelf (brown surface) where you see the dark brown intrude more. The colors become more bright as you can notice by the colored sprites/bitmaps.

Levels

The levels adjustment  altered the color balance, highlights, midtone colors and intensity levels of shadows in the image. The shadows are more obvious which was inteded. Levels adjustment made those mid tone colors more intense/saturated. The wall behind the magazine was just a light yellow and shade of gray (shadow) which had now become a  more saturated yellow and orange background. The brown surface of the shelf turned more red and the green leaves of the magazine had turned become lighter (more or less the color of lime green).

Photo Filler

Photo filler makes it easier to give your image a color tint. Tint is a certain coloration/shade present in the image. In my case I had this yellowish by changing the original color I had for this adjustment (Orange to Yellow) and I had increased the density to 75.Intentionally I made the image more yellow to give it this summer/hot summer vibe. Adding a certain tint to your image gives it a certain mood or vibe to it .

Invert 

The Invert adjustment is another self explanatory adjustment which reverses the color of the image. Turning dark pixels light, and light pixels dark, as well as altering the color. There isn't much to customize in this adjustment since there are no sliders to change any saturation, hue, density, and so on. However when using a mask you can select which colors of the image will be inverted or which parts of the image you wouldn't want to invert.

Curves

Curves adjustment layer gives you a graph to custom lighting, shadows, highlights and mid tones of the image. Medium tones/mid tones being colors that aren't very dark nor very bright. In my case I wanted to see how the image would look with more saturated shadows and less light to make the mid tone color lighter as well. The left side of Questloves face is darken with black rather than the shades of purple in the original image. There are less variety of certain colors present in the image and I just like how the lightening changed as well seeming like a sun set. In other words, I had increased the contrast of colors within the image.

Color Balance

Color balance adjustment layer changes the overall mixture of colors in an image . By increasing the red, magenta, and slightly increased I developed this color filter which made the image more pink and magenta. The adjustment itself enabled me to adjust the coloring and change the mixture of colors within the image as shown here.

Channel Mixer

Channel Mixer targets individual colors at a time. The colors that can be adjusted are red green and blue.I wanted my images to mainly consist of green and a light color magenta . Therefore. Red was kept at +25, Green was decreased to -75 and blue was increased to 145. The primary colors of the image were left with green tint and magenta/pink coloring on the blue and reds of the image.

Gradient Maps

For gradient maps  I had used the mask to bring in create this dynamic image in which I would let quest love (subject of the new york times magazine) keep his color by using the brush and mask on his entire portrait. This makes him the clear subject of this image and makes him stand out from the rest. This is what I mean about it becoming dynamic or more spirited since there is a contrasting mono tone background compared to the color quest love himself. It was an idea that immediately hit me when using the mask on the Gradient map adjustment layer.

Threshold

Threshold adjustment layer created a two tone image, Black and white. Increasing the level makes the black more present and vice versa when decreasing the level where the black of the image diminishes and the white of the image increases. I had adjusted the level to 126 which in my opinion perfectly balanced the black and white tones of the image.

There isn't much to say about using the solid adjustment layer. I decided to change the color from default (which was green in my case) and turned it blue. The solid color covers the entire image unless if you were to use a mask to reveal certain parts of image in the solid color. Similar to the tree trunk revealing water in a previous project when learning to use mask layers for the first time. There isn't much to alter/customize when using solid color adjustment layer other than changing the color itself.

Exposure

When using the exposure adjustment, adjust the exposure of shadows and light with in the image. It gives the ability to adjust exposure, offset, and Gamma Correction to make a "scene". The exposure was decreased to - 0.11, the offset was put to -0.5 and gamma correction was adjusted to 0.3. Thus the image was darken in the process.

Black and White

Black and White is a self explanatory adjustment layer. You can adjust the tones of black and white by adjusting the the rgb and cymk sliders with in the layer. I maxed the redness to 300,decreased the yellow to -44, decreased then green to -200, increased the cyan to 96, kept the blue at 25 and lowered the magenta 20. I wanted the black and grays of the image to be more saturated and make the lighter colors (white) even lighter. The end result was great since I intended for their to be different shades of gray to depict lighter and darker colors present in Quest loves clothing. Even the spots and and backgrounds have different shades.