How to Light and Photograph Smoke and Steam in a Home Studio Setting

By: Ana Mireles

Every subject has different properties according to shape, color, and material that determine the way you light it. With smoke, you want to keep a dark background and a grazing light. Here are a few things to consider when you light and photograph smoke in a home studio setting.

Have you ever tried to photograph smoke or steam? Perhaps you’re doing a portrait of a smoker or a steaming cup of coffee. Odds are that sooner or later you may face this challenge. Fortunately, the lighting technique is not as elusive as the subject.

Safety first

Before you start to photograph smoke, keep safety in mind – even if it is just smoke. If using a cigarette, always place the cigarette on an ashtray, or place incense on a burner, etc. Remember, you are working with ignited materials – you can never be too careful to avoid burning yourself or starting a fire. Also, it’s always good to have a fire extinguisher handy.

Backdrop

To photograph smoke, you first need to set up a lightbox. If you don’t have one, make the set by putting a piece of cloth as a backdrop. Black or any dark color will create more contrast.

Subject

To create the smoke, you can use an incense stick. It’s the best way to create continuous smoke for a long period of time.

Place the incense far enough from the background so that it’s well separated and the light won’t spill into it.

Light

Set up your flash to the side of the subject. Never place it directly in front of the smoke or it will illuminate the background. Then put a piece of cardboard to direct the light towards the subject. For more tips on this, you can check How to Control Your Background Tones by Manipulating Light Fall-Off.
It also works best if it’s a hard light.
You can always use a continuous light source too, but be sure to narrow the light fall-off by using a modifier or barn doors.

If you place the light in front you won’t get the dark backdrop you need.

Camera

Place your camera in front of the subject, the distance will depend on the focal length of the lens you’re working with. I recommend a telephoto lens because you will get better background compression. To help you decide which one is good for you, see this article.

With a telephoto lens, you can work with a smaller background. The left image was made with a 

35mm lens, and the one on the right with a 75mm.

Also, if you work with a telephoto, the background can be smaller. And not less important, you can position your camera further away, which will protect your lens from any damage by the smoke.

Settings

Again, this will depend on the focal length, the distance between camera and subject, and the intensity of your flash. However, I can give you some pointers to take into consideration.

Shutter speed

When setting your shutter speed, try to keep your settings fast so that the lines of the smoke are well-defined, instead of a blurry cloud. This is particularly important if you’re working with a wide source, as with this pot of boiling water. If you’re using something smaller, like a stick of incense, the effect is less drastic. Still, don’t underestimate it.

A longer shutter speed creates a stronger motion blur. This image was made with a 1/30 of a sec.

Aperture

Keep in mind that the smoke is not a flat, static surface. You want your aperture to be wide enough to keep it all in focus. But you don’t want it to be too much that it will capture the texture of the background. Don’t forget to consider other elements of the composition if you have them.

A small aperture creates a deeper depth of field. This image was taken with an f/11.

Focus

Using manual focus, set it before you turn off the lights. Focus the source of steam or smoke you’re using. For example, the tip of the incense stick if you’re going to do some abstract smoke shots. For this to work, you need to use a tripod so you don’t change your distance.

Extra tip: to create more smoke, capture the image just after you put out the flame. If you placed it inside a container, keep it covered to concentrate the smoke, then uncover it to let it all out at once.

ISO

Keep your ISO as low as your lighting and other settings allow you to go. This is because you want to avoid noise as much as possible, and dark colors make it more evident.

Higher ISO settings create more digital noise. This image was taken with a 12800 ISO. Notice all 

the color speckles? That’s the noise.

This is a very basic studio set-up to photograph smoke that can be done at home with minimum equipment. As you can see, it can still be very effective to photograph smoke. While this can be very easy, capturing the perfect smoke shot may not be, so keep shooting until you’re happy with it.

If you have any other tips to photograph smoke, or would like to share your smoke photos with us, please do so in the comments!  



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Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses (includes Example Images)

By: Matt Murray

From the 1930s onwards, manufacturers around the world produced 35mm film camera systems with a huge array of interchangeable lenses. Some good, some bad, some legendary.
With the rise of digital in the early 21st century, much of this gear fell out of favor, and prices declined rapidly. But things soon turned around.
Classic lenses are now in big demand. This is not only due to the current renaissance in film photography but also due to the fact that many photographers love to shoot with these lenses on digital cameras as well.
In this article, I explain how you can shoot portraits with classic lenses on your digital camera, including how to find one, how to set your camera up, and what to expect from vintage glass. Why limit yourself to the lenses made by your camera manufacturer when there is so much good glass out there?

Three classic M42 mount lenses that can be used in digital photography. [L-R] Pentax Super 

Takumar 50mm f1.4, Helios 44 58mm f2, Meyer Optic Goerlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8.

Why shoot portraits on classic lenses?

This is a key question – why shoot portraits on classic lenses? There are a few reasons why I enjoy it.
Firstly, I love the different look that it gives my photos. They’re not better or worse than images taken with modern autofocus lenses. However, they certainly have a unique charm and character that you just don’t get from today’s ultra-sharp digital lenses.
Secondly, buying a vintage lens is a fantastic way of getting some quality glass in your kit on the cheap. Although prices have risen in recent years, you can still buy many amazing lenses for under $100 USD.
Finally, it’s a lot of fun to shoot with an older lens. I love to think about the images the lens has taken over the course of its lifetime, who has used it, and where it’s been. It’s also a point of interest – people often look puzzled and will go out of their way to find out what lens you’re using and where you got it.

How do I find a classic lens?

Finding a classic lens is relatively straightforward. The first thing you could try is to ask friends and family if they have any old film photography gear. It’s quite possible that an old Pentax or Olympus film camera is lurking in their attic. With some luck, the lens (and camera) will be in a usable condition, and you will be able to shoot portraits with it.
If that avenue doesn’t produce any classic beauties for you, turn to eBay, Facebook marketplace, and other online markets to see what’s for sale.

Considering their optical quality, Super Takumar lenses are still a bargain despite rising prices.

Before you do this, do some research about which lenses you’d like to buy, and make sure that you can get an adapter to fit the lens to your digital camera.
Take care when reading the description of lenses online. Ideally, you want a lens that has clear glass, with no fungus or haze. Don’t worry too much about small amounts of dust – all lenses (especially vintage ones) will have dust in the lens, which doesn’t usually affect image quality too much.
Although I’ve said above that you should avoid lenses with fungus and haze, I have used lenses with plenty of fungi in, without having much of a noticeable effect on images. Still, it’s something you’re best to avoid. If you look at the images of the lenses posted in this article, there are plenty of spots of dust and marks on the lenses I’ve used, but with no noticeable effect.

Buy a lens adaptor

A classic lens will not fit on to your digital camera as it is – you will also need to buy a lens adaptor. There is an adapter for almost every classic lens/digital mount combination.
Don’t just buy the cheapest one you can find; quality does matter here. If you’re not sure which brand to buy, ask around in Facebook groups to see what other people use and recommend.
The adapter I used for images in this article is the K&F Concept M42 to Fujifilm X adapter. I have two K&F Concept adapters – one for M42 mount and one for the smaller M39 mount.

Lens adapters are available for almost all classic lens to digital camera combinations. 

Pictured are M42 and M39 to Fujifilm X lens adapters.

Set your camera up to shoot with your classic lens

Once you have your lens and adapter, you now need to set up your camera to shoot with it. The steps I have below are for my Fujifilm X-Series cameras. If you’re using another brand, ask in Facebook groups, or turn to Google to find out how you can do the same for your camera.
Firstly, you need to enable the “shoot without lens” option in the menu. If the camera doesn’t recognize the lens, it may not allow you to take any images at all, so this is a must.
Secondly, set the focal length of the lens you are using in the mount adapter setting. The camera doesn’t know which lens you are using, so it will take the value in here for the metadata for images. If you skip this step, it’s no big deal, but it certainly makes finding images later on a little easier in Lightroom. Also, remember to keyword your images on import, as you may have several classic lenses with the same focal length.
Now you’re all set to manually focus your classic lens on your digital camera.

Wait, I have to focus manually?

In the vast majority of circumstances, yes. If you’re adapting a lens from one system to another, you’ll have to focus manually.
It may surprise you to know that in terms of the history of photography, autofocus lenses are relatively new. The first mass-produced autofocus camera was the Konica C35 AF point-and-shoot in 1977, and the first 35mm autofocus SLR, the Pentax ME F, was released in 1981.
Even after the arrival of this new technology, many professional photographers thought of autofocus as a gimmick and didn’t trust it until further advancements in the late 80s and early 90s.
If the thought of manually focussing on a portrait shoot alarms you, don’t worry. Digital cameras have amazing technology inside them that will help you.

I found this classic in a charity shop for $15USD.

Set up focus peaking

Focus peaking is a technology that many cameras have to make manually focussing a lens easier. When this is enabled, the camera will highlight objects that are in focus with a color (typically red) as you look through the viewfinder.
As you rotate the lens back and forth, different objects will come in and out of focus. When shooting portraits, you rotate the lens until your subject’s hair and/or eyelashes highlight in red.
This technology helps to focus enormously, especially if, like me, your vision isn’t as good as it used to be. Other options to assist manual focusing in the Fujifilm X-Series line include digital split image and digital microprism.

Classic lens road test

To illustrate the types of portrait images you can take with vintage glass, I’ve used three different lenses for this article. I’ve used the Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8, the Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4, and the Helios 44 58mm f2 lens.
All of them have the same M42 mount, a system of attaching a lens to a camera body originally designed by the Carl Zeiss company in the late 1930s.
M42 is a screw mount. To attach the lens to a lens adapter (or an M42 mount vintage camera), you rotate it around in a circle until it stops. Don’t overtighten it. This is quite different from many modern cameras which use a bayonet-style mount. Many legendary camera manufacturers have used M42 at some stage, including Contax, Pentax, Yashica, and Olympus.

Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8

I picked up this Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston in a bag of camera gear at a charity shop for $15 USD. As soon as I saw the zebra stripe pattern around the edge of the lens, I knew I had something special.

The Zebra stripes of the Meyer Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f1.8, mounted with a K&F Concept 

adapter to my Fujifilm X-T2.

Meyer Optik produced this lens in their East German factory from 1960-1971. After this, the company was absorbed into the Pentacon group, and the name disappeared from lenses entirely.
A feature of this lens is its beautiful color rendition and distinct vintage look. It has a softer, dreamier overall look than other lenses, but it’s still sharp. Shoot wide open with this lens for beautiful, dreamy bokeh. It’s one of my favorite classic lenses.

Sarah in a field. This image shows the dreamy bokeh of the Meyer Optik Goerlitz Oreston 

50mm f1.8 lens.

This is one of my favorite shots of my daughter, taken with the Oreston 50mm f1.8 lens.

Pentax Super Takumar 50mm f1.4

This lens has a few dents but keeps on rocking! Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 mounted with a K&F 

Concept adapter to my Fujifilm X-T2.

In the 1960s, Pentax wanted to come up with a lens that would rival – or even outperform – Carl Zeiss glass. The result was the first version of the Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 lens with eight elements.
It’s been said that in the early days of its release, Pentax lost money each time they sold one. Perhaps this is why they soon switched to a cheaper seven-element version of the lens.
Manufacturing differences can make identification tricky, but I understand the lens that I have (pictured above) is a later version of the seven-element Super Tak. This version of the lens uses a radioactive element – Thorium – in its rear element. Despite their radioactivity, lenses with Thorium are not considered dangerous. Unless you grind one up and eat it, but that would be a terrible waste of a good lens.
Over many years, Thorium can cause yellowing in the glass. You will see from the images below – especially the first – that it has quite a warm look to it because of this issue.
The Super Tak (any version you can get your hands on) is a gem of a lens. Faster than other lenses in this review, it’s sharp, has pleasing bokeh and fabulous color rendition. If you don’t like the warm cast some of them have, due to the yellowing of the lens, you can always correct it in post.

At the beach. Shot wide open at f1.4 on the Pentax Super Takumar 50mm lens. Note the very warm 

look to the image caused by a yellowing of the lens over time.

Alyssa in Brisbane. Shot on the Fujifilm X-T2 with Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 Lens.

Helios 44

Helios 44 lenses are among the best-known vintage lenses that photographers have bought in recent years to use with digital cameras. Like many post-war Russian lenses, it’s a copy of an earlier German design, the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f2.

An odd-looking combination – a silver Helios 44 58mm f2 lens mounted on my Fujifilm X-T2.

Helios 44 lenses were produced in several different factories in the former Soviet Union. My lens features a full chrome metal construction, but others are black anodized lenses that come in a variety of styles. It’s been said that no two Helios lenses are the same – each has its own unique character.
Take the photos below – the Helios lenses are most associated with swirly bokeh, but in one of the images below, my lens has quite a bit of soap bubble bokeh.
The Helios is sharp, fun to use, and has the most unique bokeh in the lenses I’ve featured in this article. When you use the lens for portraits, though, beware of the bokeh trap.

What’s the bokeh trap?

Bokeh is the name for the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus parts of an image. Vintage lenses are known to generally have much more unique bokeh than modern lenses. Be careful not to fall into the bokeh trap though – remember that you’re shooting portraits, you’re not producing images just to show off the bokeh.

This image shows some of the swirly bokeh that the Helios 44 line of lenses is known for.

In the right circumstances, the Helios 44 lenses can exhibit incredible looking bokeh. Pictured 

above is the soap bubble bokeh due to the backlit foliage behind the subject.

Lens comparison test at the beach

I took the photos above at different locations, so to demonstrate what the lenses look like on the same shoot, I took them to the beach with my Fujifilm X-T2.
On this shoot, there are noticeable differences between the three, and I believe that I could pick each one if I hadn’t taken the images myself. However, the differences were not as big as I had imagined. All images were shot wide open (using the smallest f-number the lens has) with focus peaking turned on.

No prizes for guessing which lens this is! The Super Takumar has a warm cast to it.

Next up is the Oreston, the sea did not produce a very distinctive bokeh in this instance compared to 

other images I’ve taken with foliage in the background.

Almost surprisingly, this image taken by the Helios was my favorite all-around image in this test.

The Helios RAW image with some edits applied in Lightroom.

Using a vintage lens with your digital camera is something every photographer should try. It’s an easy way to give your images a very unique and characteristic look, including bokeh, which you just don’t get on modern lenses.
It’s also a fantastic way of adding some high-quality glass to your kit for a fraction of the price of modern equivalents.
An added bonus is that it can help you grow as a photographer – especially if you’ve only used autofocus lenses before. Using a classic lens will force you to manually focus and discover more about the incredible features of modern cameras, like focus peaking.
Has this article, Photographing Portraits with Classic Lenses inspired you to try classic lenses with your digital camera? If you’ve already used classic lenses in your photography, which ones were your favorites? Tell us in the comments below.


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3 Good Reasons to Use Layers in Photoshop

By: Sarah Hipwell 

If you shoot RAW, in general, you will be editing those files in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), Lightroom or some other RAW editor. This may be all the post editing that you require. However, if you are like me, I finish my editing in Photoshop. Why? Because I use layers and they play an essential part of my workflow.
Layers are definitely where the real magic in Photoshop happens. They were introduced way back in version 3.0. I am a long-time user of Photoshop, so using layers in my workflow is second nature.

How do layers work?

In Photoshop, there are many types of layers. You can add text to your image using a Type Layer. You can duplicate any type of layer. By using a Layer Style, you can add a drop shadow or other effects to your photo. For example, you may want to color correct a portrait image by using a Curves Adjustment Layer.
In this article, I’ll give a brief overview of how layers work and go on to explain why I use the following go-to in my workflow:

1. Adjustment Layers for non-destructive editing
2. Layer Masks
3. Smart Objects

The Layers Panel

Let’s go over to the Layers Panel and I’ll walk you through how layers work. Here is an example of a simple vector image of a mountain range with a sunset. There are six layers stacked on top of one another, that make up the final image. By clicking on the eye icon, you can turn the visibility of each layer off and on.

Different layer types in Photoshop

Six layers stacked on top of each other to form a picture in Photoshop

However, in Photoshop, you can do a lot more with layers. You can delete a layer by clicking on it and dragging it to the little trash can at the bottom of the panel. You can also duplicate a layer by dragging it down to the icon beside the trash can, which creates a copy of that layer. A layer can be moved by clicking on it and dragging it up or down the stack. You can reduce the opacity of a layer, thereby allowing some or all of the image layer underneath to show through, depending on how much you reduce the opacity.

Duplicate and delete layers in the Layers Panel using the tools circled in red.

#1 – Adjustment Layers

Without a doubt, when Adjustment Layers were introduced into Photoshop 4.0 it meant that users could unleash the magic of Photoshop by editing non-destructively. Prior to this, you had to duplicate the image first to preserve the original, as edits were permanently made to the layer. Adjustment Laters are key in any photographer’s workflow.
As a precautionary note, Adjustments under Image in the Options Bar is not the same as creating an Adjustment Layer via Layer>New Adjustment Layer. The former will apply edits directly to the layer that you are working on, where as an Adjustment Layer adds a layer above the working one. These edits can be redone or discarded without altering the pixels of your original image.

Applying edits through Image>Adjustments will affect the image permanently.

Working non-destructively by adding a New Adjustment Layer via the Layer tab in the Options Bar.

Adjustments Panel

As with the Layers Panel, the Adjustment Layers has its very own panel too. The icons represent the 16 different layer adjustments available in Photoshop. Some are used more than others. Adjustment layers apply the correction to all the layers below them, without affecting any of the layers above.

Adjustment Layers has its own panel with 16 icons representing the different options.

Once I do my initial edits in ACR, I’ll finish off my post-processing in Photoshop using Adjustment layers. I like to use Levels, Curves and Selective Color & LUTs to add the necessary contrast and color corrections. As each Adjustment Layer is used and stacked on top of each other, it is essential to reduce the opacity of each layer.

How Adjustments Layers can add color correction and bring out the details in the image in a 

non-destructive way

Different Adjustment Layers such as Levels, Curves and Selective Color were used on this image.

What about areas of your image that don’t require the same amount of editing as other parts?

#2 – Layer Masks

When adding an Adjustment Layer in Photoshop, it applies the adjustment to the whole image. But, sometimes you need to make adjustments to only one area or separate parts of an image. This is where Layer Masks come in handy. When you add a new Adjustment Layer, it automatically adds a white Layer Mask (white reveals and black conceals).
For example, in the image of the waterfall, it was necessary for me to mask the water with each adjustment layer, otherwise, the highlights would have been blown out.

The water in the image on the left has not had masks applied when global edits were added using 

Adjustment Layers. Masks were used on the water in the image on the right to preserve the highlights.

In the following image of this landscape in the Dublin mountains, the day was quite overcast. I wasn’t happy with the sky, so I decided to try a different one. By using the Layer masks, I was able to mask out the original sky. I used the Pen Tool for this but you can use the Brush or the Quick Selection Tool and then fill the area with black.

Layer mask applied to hide the original sky and reveal the new sky from the layer beneath.

The new sky image underneath was put under this layer so that it showed through the mask, similar to a cut-out. I then added more Adjustment Layers to color correct the image so that the new sky looked seamless.

An animated gif to demonstrate the Adjustment Layers to color correct the image and by adding a 

layer mask to reveal a different sky to the original overcast one.

#3 – Smart Objects

Adobe really defines Smart Objects in a neat nutshell. Smart Objects preserve an image’s source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer.
So for photographers, this is fantastic news. Now, when you apply edits to a layer that is a Smart Object, you can transform, scale, rotate, warp, apply filters or layer masks. The quality of the image will not be degraded even though it is a raster image!

An image layer converted to a Smart Object

So how do you convert an image to a Smart Object? It is simple, right click on the layer and select Convert to a Smart Object. You will see a small icon on the thumbnail image that tells you that the layer is now a Smart Object.

Right click on the layer to reveal a drop-down menu and select Convert to a Smart Object.

If you edit your images in Camera Raw, you can then export the image into Photoshop as a Smart Object. Hold the Shift key and the Open Image button turns to Open Object. This means that at a later date, you can return to Camera Raw to re-edit by double clicking on the layer thumbnail.

How to set the default in Camera Raw for images to be exported to Photoshop as Smart Objects.

Alternatively, when you have the Camera Raw dialog box open, at the bottom there is what looks like a link on a website. This link actually takes you to the Camera Raw Workflow Options. You can check the box Open in Photoshop as Smart Objects to set that as the default in ACR.

Click the check box in the Camera Raw Workflow Options dialog box to ensure images are exported out as Smart Objects.

Conclusion

Layers can play an important role in your post-production.

• You can separate parts of the image and edit them without affecting other parts of the image.
• Converting your image layers to a Smart Object allows you to move the new image around, edit it, and resize it without affecting the resolution of the original image.
• You can add multiple layers on top of each other and put them into groups.
• You can apply filters and effects to layers independently, e.g. drop-shadow, color adjustments, etc.
• Blend Mode options can change the appearance of each layer
• You can reduce the opacity on a layer. This is particularly useful when using Layer Adjustments to fine-tune the edit to create a subtle effect.

The main take away from using Layers in Photoshop is that the whole process is working non-destructively.
Now it’s your turn, do you use layers in your post-production process? What are your favorite techniques for using layers? Please share your comments below.

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Photoshop Adjustment Layers Explained and How to Use Them (Part 1)

By: Nisha Ramroop 

If you use Photoshop, you probably already know that layers are a great non-destructive way to edit. Within the realm of layers, there exists a group of very useful editing tools called Adjustment Layers that allows for easy editing of your images. As with most Photoshop tools, there are several ways to achieve the same result. When you use Photoshop adjustment layers (as with other layer types), you can make changes, save it as a Photoshop file (PSD) and undo/change it many years later. Since no pixels are destroyed or changed, your original image stays intact. Let’s take a look at the basics of using Photoshop Adjustment Layers.

Accessing Photoshop Adjustment Layers

There are two ways to access Photoshop Adjustment Layers.
1. To access via the Layers Menu; choose Layer->New Adjustment Layer, and choose one of the many adjustment types (which are expanded upon below).

2. To access via the Layers Panel; click on the half black/half white circle at the bottom of the Layers Panel, and choose the adjustment type you want to work with.

Adjustment Layer Types

1. Brightness and Contrast

Brightness and Contrast allow you to make simple adjustments to the brightness and contrast levels within your photo. When you adjust brightness, the overall lightness (or darkness) of each pixel in your frame is changed. To increase a photo’s tonal values and increase the highlights, slide the Brightness to the right. To decrease a photo’s tonal values and increase the shadows, slide the Brightness to the left.
Contrast, however, adjusts the difference between the brightness of the elements in your image.  Thus, if you increase brightness you make every pixel lighter, whereas if you increase contrast you make the light areas lighter and the dark areas darker.

2. Levels

The levels tool adjusts the tonal range and color balance of your image. It does this by adjusting the intensity levels of the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights in your image. Levels Presets can be saved and then easily applied to further images.
Of note, if you use the Image menu to open the levels tool (Image->Adjustments->Levels) a separate layer will not be created and the changes will be committed directly (destructively) to your image layer. Thus, I recommend using the Adjustment Layers menu (as shown above)  to access this very useful tool.

3. Curves

While the Levels adjustment allows you to adjust all the tones proportionally in your image, the Curves adjustment lets you choose the section of the tonal scale you want to change. On the Levels graph, the upper-right area represents the highlights, while the lower-left area represents the shadows.
Use either of these adjustments (levels or curves) to correct your tone when your image’s contrast is off (either too low or high).
The Levels Adjustment works well if you need to apply a global adjustment to your tone. To apply more selective adjustments, you are better off using Curves. This includes adjustments to just a small section of the tonal range or if you only want to adjust light or dark tones.

4. Exposure

When you think of exposing an image properly, you are concerned with capturing the ideal brightness, which will give you details in both the highlights and shadows. In Photoshop Adjustment Layers, the Exposure Adjustment has three sliders that adjust Exposure, Offset and Gamma.
Use the Exposure slider to adjust the highlights of the image, the Offset slider for the mid-tones and the Gamma to target the dark tones only.

5. Vibrance

Use the Vibrance Adjustment Layer to boost the duller colors in your image. The great thing about increasing vibrance is that it focuses on the less-saturated areas and does not affect colors that are already saturated.

Vibrance adjusts only the duller colors in an image

Look at the difference in the greens between this image and the one above. Saturation adjusts all 

the colors (and tonal range) in an image.

6. Hue/Saturation

Hue and Saturation, allows you to change the overall color hue of your image, as well as how saturated the color is.
You can change the hue (color) of your entire image by keeping “Master” selected in the dropdown (this is set by default). Alternatively, you can pinpoint the color you would like to change the hue of. You can choose from Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyan, Blues or Magentas.
In addition to adjusting the obvious hue and color saturation of your image, this Photoshop Adjustment Layer allows you to adjust the lightness of your entire image as well as work with specified colors. Keep in mind that changing the overall saturation of an image affects your tonal range.

Use the Hue Adjustment to get creative

Color Balance

The Color Balance Adjustment layer is used to change the overall mixture of colors in an image and works well for color correction.

Color Balance adjusted for the mid-tones to include more red

You first need to select either Shadows, Midtones or Highlights, to choose the tonal range you want to change.
Check the Preserve Luminosity box to preserve your luminosity values (brightness or darkness) and maintain the tonal balance as you change the color in your image. Move your slider toward the color you want to increase and away from the color you wish to decrease.

Black and White

As the name implies, the Black and White adjustment layer allows you to easily take your images to a grayscale version or apply a color tint entirely.
There are many ways to achieve black and white image processing. The Black and White Photoshop Adjustment Layer is one of the better ones. It allows you to lighten or darken specific color ranges to enhance your black and white conversion. Example: If you want the blues of your color image to stand out more when converted to black and white, simply toggle that slider. You can add more or less contrast by making particular colors lighter or darker.

1. When you choose the Black & White Adjustment Layer, you get a default black & white conversion 

2. You can tweak the image based on selective colors. In this example, the blues and yellows were 

adjusted 3. You can apply a tint (of any color) over the entire image by ticking the Tint box and 

selecting the color you wish to overlay.

Important Note: While most of these adjustments are available under the Image menu (Image->Adjustments), using them from there does not work the same. The main difference is that these are applied directly to the image (destructively) as opposed to when done under Adjustment Layers. When done under Adjustment Layers, you can turn the adjustment on and off by selecting and deselecting the “eye” in the layers panel.

Conclusion

Photoshop Adjustment Layers are a great group of tools that allow you to smartly edit your image in a non-destructive way. Your original pixels are preserved, so you are able to come back and change your edits years later. Thus, they give you the power to undo easier and work more efficiently.
Photoshop Adjustment Layers group together the most common editing tasks, along with a few others to help you bring your images to life.
In Part 2, we will explore some other tools in the Adjustment suite.
Share with us in the comments your favorite adjustment tool and how you use them.

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