17. MANAGING BLACKS AND WHITES IN AN IMAGE
NOW THAT YOU’VE adjusted exposure, contrast, highlights, and shadows, let’s move into the whites and blacks. This is somewhat controversial because a lot of individuals like to set their whites and blacks first. But, with how well the four sliders at the very top work, I find that I use the Whites and Blacks sliders less and less. More often than not, I like using these sliders when I see that I have enough water across the bottle in the tonal range, but just need to do some slight tweaking to the file.
In Figure 17.1, you’ll notice that there’s a pretty good amount of range, but if you look at the histogram (Figure 17.2), you can see that the image could use a little bit more information on the blacks and whites sides. By dragging the sliders over, we can solve that problem pretty quickly.
Think of the whites and blacks as the brightest and darkest portions of the picture. You want to find the point that’s completely white and the point that’s completely black, but it’s really hard to see this in the picture. To achieve this, I recommend you hold down the Option (Mac) or Alt (PC) key and drag the white slider to the right. At first, the image will turn completely dark, and then as you drag the Whites slider to the right, you’ll see some areas of the picture change. You’re looking for the first area that turns white, which is the portion of the picture that could clip (Figure 17.3). This is the brightest level that’s there; it is about as bright as you can make the white appear. You may see other colors in this process, but what you’re looking for is white.
Next, hold down the Option or Alt key and drag the Blacks slider to the left. As you do this, you may see other colors appear, but what you’re looking for is the first spots of black (Figure 17.4). This will tell you how far you can technically move the Blacks slider. Once the white and black points are set, you can use the Shadows and Highlights sliders to bring back as much information as you can in the file.
Figure 17.1
Figure 17.2
Figure 17.3 The brightest part of the image is in the sky, just above the structure on the far left.
Figure 17.4 The darkest part of the image is in the hedges at the bottom.
This is technically a good way to set your white and black points, but again, I can’t stress enough how rarely I use these sliders. I only use them when I need to do some final cleanup work.
Figure 17.5
Figure 17.6 The final image