Operation Manual

102 LESSON 4 Image Editing Basics
Recognizing what your photo needs
For some photos, applying one-click fixes in the Organizer will be enough, but
when you want more control—and access to the full power of Photoshop Elements
editing, adjustment and correction tools—you’ll work in the Editor.
Before you explore the Editor’s three working modes, we’ll look at some of the basic
concepts behind image adjustment and correction.
Recognizing and understanding a photo’s problems and deficiencies makes the task
of correcting and enhancing the image much faster and easier—even when you’re
simply choosing from automatic fixes as you did in the full screen view.
1 Ctrl-click / Command-click to select both of the photos that you’ve already
worked with in this lesson; then add the image DSC_0212.jpg to the selection.
Click the Editor button (not the arrow beside it) in the Task bar.
2 If you are not already in Expert edit mode, click Expert in the mode picker at
the top of the Editor workspace; then, choose Window > Reset panels.
3 Click the arrow beside the More button ( ) at the right of the Task bar and
choose Histogram from the panels menu.
4 If necessary, change the Channel setting in the
Histogram panel from the default Colors to RGB;
then, click the triangular alert icon ( ) at the
upper right of the black and white Histogram
curve to refresh the histogram graph with
un-cached information.
Understanding the histogram
A histogram is a graph that maps the distribution of tonal values in an image, from
the shadows at the left end of the curve, through the midtones, to the highlights at
the right of the curve.
A peak in the curve shows that the corresponding part of the tonal range is well
represented—in other words, the image contains plenty of detail in that area.
Inversely, a trough in the histogram curve can indicate a deficiency of image detail.
You can use the histogram both as a “diagnostic” tool that can help you to recog-
nize where corrections need to be made, and also as a source of dynamic feedback
that enables you to assess how effective an adjustment will be, even as you set it up.
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Note: The first time
you launch the Editor,
it opens in Quick edit
mode; after that, it will
reopen to whichever
edit mode was active
when you last exited
the application.
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Note: The triangular
alert icon will reappear
on the histogram each
time you change an
image; click the icon to
refresh the graph.