This looks like a very useful 5page article on using Curves for colour control. It starts by saying the Curves tool is available in most applications including Elements. I've just bought Adobe Elements 8 and I cannot see how to access this tool. The Adobe Help system just doesn't help at all. Please can someone tell me how to find it?
Thanks, Simon
(Ctrl A > Ctrl C)
No, that tool doesn't appear to bear any resemblance to the one described in AP. I'm familiar with the Curves tool in Paint Shop Pro, which is very similar to what AP describes, and I'm looking for the Elements equivalent.
Paint Shop Pro Curves as in this? (Levels is first, Curves starts 1 min 34)
In Elements the S curve graph is on the bottom right of the image in the link I posted.
This is not the item you are looking for?
(Ctrl A > Ctrl C
Um - In PSP, and in the description in the AP article, you can adjust separate curves for red, green and blue, and so use it to, for example, make highlights more red and shadows more blue. This doesn't seem possible with the Elements tool though AP says it is.
You are correct - it seems only possible to correct tones on Elements 8 - there does not appear to be any way to apply curves to individual colours (R,G,B) separately. The tutorial is obviously based on full Photoshop, not Elements. However, if you download Smartcurve from www.brothersoft.com/smartcurve-download-170864.html, double click on the zip file, and add the resulting 8BF file to Elements 8 Filters (Program Files>Photoshop Elements 8>Plug Ins>Filters) you will find a similar curves function in the Filters Menu on Elements 8 (called EasyFilter>SmartCurve), where you can choose which Channel you want to adjust.
Now that does sound useful - I'll give it a go. Thanks for the help. I'll assume the AP article got it wrong - they specifically say Elements has this tool.
Smartcurve is an excellent product. Hard to believe that it's free. If you want to pay for the real deal, then Curvemeister is superb. I have both running on Elements 3 and 7.However, if you download Smartcurve from www.brothersoft.com/smartcurve-download-170864.html, double click on the zip file, and add the resulting 8BF file to Elements 8 Filters (Program Files>Photoshop Elements 8>Plug Ins>Filters) you will find a similar curves function in the Filters Menu on Elements 8 (called EasyFilter>SmartCurve), where you can choose which Channel you want to adjust.
Can't be a***d with a signature.
Hi guys
Apologies for the misleading sentence. It was my intention to generally introduce Curves and say they are now in Elements, but I should have mentioned the ability to edit individual colour channels is limited to the full version of Photoshop (sadly).
However, Levels is a different matter, and you can achieve very similar (sometimes identical) results in this way. Elements will allow you to select an individual channel in the Levels dialogue, and you can use the middle slider to change the over all colour balance in the same way as described for Curves in the magazine article:
• In the red channel, move the middle slider to the left to add red (subtract cyan) and to the right to add cyan (subtract red).
• In the green channel, move the middle slider to the left to add green (subtract magenta) and to the right to add magenta (subtract green)
• In the Blue channel, move the middle slider tot he left to add blue (subtract yellow) and to the right to add yellow (subtract blue)
Experiment with the black and white point sliders too.
Hope this helps as a workaround for Elements. Apologies for the mix up.
Ian.
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