User Guide

Chapter 5: Painting And Image Editing
Desaturating image colors
You can use the Desaturate command to remove color from images completely, while retaining the
relative brightness levels of shadows, midtones, and highlights. The command converts an entire
image to shades of gray without changing the image mode.
To desaturate an image:
1. Select one or more paint objects to desaturate all the images. You can select an area in one
image in edit mode to desaturate the selected area only. If you don’t make a selection, the
entire image in edit mode is affected. This command works with paint objects in RGB Color
mode, CMYK Color mode, and LAB Color mode.
2. Choose Image | Adjust | Desaturate or select Desaturate from the Adjust menu in the
Properties bar.
Adjusting brightness and contrast
You can adjust the brightness and contrast of an entire image or specific channels with the
Brightness/Contrast command. Brightness refers to the lightness of an image. Contrast is the
difference in brightness between two pixels.
Because the Brightness/Contrast command adjusts all pixels equally, you should avoid using it to
lighten an image that appears too dark, because the image can lose shadow detail.
To preserve shadows or highlights when adjusting the brightness of an image:
Use the Levels or Curves commands (see "Levels" on page 468 and "Adjusting brightness curves"
on page 470).
To use the Brightness/Contrast command:
1. Select one or more paint objects to adjust all the images. You can select an area in one image
in edit mode to adjust the selected area only. If you don’t make a selection, the entire image
in edit mode is affected. This command doesn’t work with paint objects in Black & White
mode or Indexed mode.
2. Choose Image | Adjust | Brightness/Contrast or select Brightness/Contrast from the Adjust
menu in the Properties bar.
3. Enter a Brightness value from -100 to 100. Higher values can wash out midtones and
shadows. Lower values can dull highlights.
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