Using Adjustment Layers in Photoshop

Adjustment Layers are an extremely powerful tool in Photoshop. In their simplest form they allow us to edit things such as curves, brightness/contrast, saturation and colour in a non-destructive way on our images. In their most complex we can layer effects together along with masks to create stunning effects. This tutorial will explain the basics of Adjustment Layers and the masks that accompany them.

What you will need:

• Photoshop

1. With our image open the first step is to add the adjustment layer of our choice. For this tutorial we will add a black and white adjustment from the button in the layers panel.

As you can see the image has now turned black and white which we can adjust in the same way as we would if we had gone through the Image>Adjustments menu. The difference however is that the effect is applied as a layer connected to the layer highlighted when the adjustment layer was added. This means that we can delete this layer and revert the image back to its original form.

2. You will notice that in the layers panel where your new adjustment layer was created, there is a blank white box next to what appears to be a chain, this is what we call a layer mask. This is an alpha channel which is visible in the channels browser, and controls which areas of the image are effected by the adjustment layer.

3. If you select this white box and then choose a black paint brush. If you now paint on your image you will notice that the areas where you paint change to colour. The reason for this is that you are painting areas of black onto your mask and telling photoshop to not apply the adjustment layer to these areas.

What you have learnt in this tutorial are the very basics of Adjustment Layers, there is no limit to what is possible and what can be created. Experiment with applying multiple adjustment layers to the same image and just see what you can create.