Basic Tone Questions

[southwestform]

Generally, when trying to create a nicely exposed image:

1. How does adjusting the contrast technically vary from just adjusting the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks? Doesn't adjusting the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks create contrast? Should I still adjust my contrast in addition to the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks?

2. I drag my Highlights to the right to move my histogram towards the right and am able to all the way until it hits +100 and it is still not peaking on the right. Is this a good idea to do it this way? What should I be looking for within my highlights to determine how far to drag to the right?

3. I drag my whites to the right until the red overlay begins displaying indicating that I'm clipping my highlights/whites. I then drag back the whites until the red overlay disappears. Is this a good approach?

Thanks in advance 

[Martin Scozzese · Accepted solution]

Hi. Let me tell you how I begin to adjust just about all of my images and hopefully answer your points.

1. I always prefer to adjust the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders rather than adjusting the Contrast slider. This way I have more control over which parts of the tone I am adjusting and yes, I can create the same increase or decrease in Contrast to using the Contrast slider. However, I feel that the Contrast slider is a bit more clumsy than using the 4 individual sliders.
2. I would recommend dragging the Highlights slider to the left for most images and drag the Whites slider to the right. If you hold the Alt key down while sliding the Whites, you will see a black mask which will begin to show areas of white as you drag the slider. These white patches indicate overexposed pixels. The same can be achieved by switching on the indicator warnings in the Histogram. If you couple this with dragging the shadows slider right and the Blacks slider left, you get more dynamic range and increase the contrast. Adjust to taste.
3. Yes.

I hope this gives you a good starting place. Additionally, the Tone Curve will allow you to increase contrast with more control than the Contrast slider.