The Split Toning tab is generally used in conjunction with the Convert to
Grayscale options in the Basic and HSL/Grayscale tabs. (Although you can
use it to make adjustments to highlights or shadows, you would generally
remove or introduce a color cast in the Basic tab with the Temperature and
Tint sliders.) Think of split toning as creating a sepia or Duotone version of
an image. As you can see in Figure 7-16, you have separate controls for
adjusting the highlights and shadows. Select a different hue for each and
adjust the saturation independently. The Balance slider allows you to control
what part of the tonal range is considered highlight or shadow.
To create a sepia effect, start with a value of 40 in both of the Highlights
fields and perhaps +30 for Balance. Use a Shadow saturation value of 0 (and
because saturation is set to 0, it doesn’t matter what value you select for the
Hue slider). Remember, too, that you can select the same hue for both
Highlights and Shadows to create a monochrome effect.
Figure 7-16: A photo of a bland building in front of an overcast sky is improved with split toning.
Compensating with Lens Correction
Use the Lens tab’s controls (as shown in Figure 7-17) to compensate for
certain undesirable characteristics of your lens. Zoom in on an area of angled
lines in an image — perhaps tree branches in front of a bright sky — and
look for colorful halos or fringes along edges. Use the Chromatic Aberration
153
Chapter 7: The Adobe Camera Raw Plug-In
12 327258-ch07.qxp 8/20/08 3:02 PM Page 153
154
Part II: Easy Enhancements for Digital Images
sliders to minimize the fringe. Be patient and careful — often there will be
one precise pair of settings that eliminates the problem. (And keep in mind
that while refraction of light through water or ice isn’t the same as chromatic
aberration, these sliders are sometimes helpful in minimizing those colored
halos, as well.)
Figure 7-17: Original to the left, corrected image to the right.

Calibration tab (see Figure 7-19) to
reduce a color cast, an unwanted color
tint in the image. Use very small adjust-
ments! Generally, though, you’ll skip
the Calibration tab completely.
If your particular camera model has
had multiple profiles created, you’ll see
them listed in the pop-up menu at the
top. The image open in Camera Raw
when Figure 7-19 was captured is from a
camera whose profile was last updated
for Adobe Camera Raw 4.4, so the cur-
rent profile is actually selected, despite
the fact that this is Camera Raw 5.
Camera Raw’s new Presets tab (the tab
to the far right) simply stores a conve-
nient list of your saved presets. Any
time you use the Save Settings com-
mand from the menu to the right of the
tabbed area, your preset is added to
the list for convenient one-click appli-
cation. To use save settings, open an
image in Camera Raw, open the Presets
panel, click the profile, and click Open
Image/Open Object or Done.
The Camera Raw buttons
In the lower-left and lower-right corners of Camera Raw are four buttons,
three of which have hidden features that you access by pressing the
Option/Alt key:
155

12 327258-ch07.qxp 8/20/08 3:02 PM Page 156
8
Fine-Tuning Your Fixes
In This Chapter
ᮣ
Telling Photoshop where to work with selections
ᮣ
Masking for layer visibility and to protect parts of your image
ᮣ
Keeping your options open with adjustment layers
T
here you are, repainting the bedroom — all by yourself, saving money,
being productive — and it’s time to do the windows. Now, you probably
don’t want to paint over the glass, right? Just the frame, the sash, the sill,
those little whatch-ya-call-its between the panes, right? (Okay, technically
the dividers between the panes are called muntins.) There are several ways
you can avoid painting the glass. You can use a little brush and paint very
carefully. You can use a larger brush, paint faster, and scrape the excess from
the glass afterward. You can grab the masking tape, protect the glass,
and paint as sloppily as you like — when the tape comes off, the
glass is paint-free.
Those are unbelievably similar to the choices that you
have in Photoshop when you need to work on only a
part of your image. You can zoom in and use tools,
dragging the cursor over only those pixels that you
want to change (just like using a tiny paintbrush).
You can use the History Brush feature (which I
introduce in Chapter 1) to restore parts of the image
to the original state (like scraping the glass). You
can isolate the area of the image you want to change

Figure 8-1: Sometimes only part of the image needs changes.
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 158
By making a selection and applying an adjustment, I can make this image look
much, much better. Of course, you might choose to make a different selection
and apply a different adjustment, but you can see what I chose to do in the
lower-left of Figure 8-2. By selecting the rails (in this case, with the Polygon
Lasso tool, which I explain later in this chapter), I isolate those areas from
the rest of the image, enabling me to change the color of those pixels without
changing anything else. (Rather than selecting and darkening the rails to
make them appear to be in front of a glow, I could have selected the lighter
area and created a uniform sky color. But this is visually more interesting.)
Figure 8-2: The selection (shown to the right) restricts the change to some parts of the image.
The tonal and color adjustments that I discuss in Chapters 5 and 6 are often
applied to an image as a whole. You can, however, apply them to specific
areas of an image. Much of the rest of the work that you do in Photoshop is
not global in nature, but rather is done to only restricted areas of your image.
You use selections to do that restricting.
You can also use selections for a variety of other jobs in Photoshop. One
of the most common is copying from one image and pasting into another.
You can see one example in Figure 8-3. The subject of one image (upper left)
is selected. You can see a close-up of the selection to the right. Choosing
Edit➪Copy copies the selected pixels to the Clipboard. You can then switch
to another image and use the Edit➪Paste command to drop those pixels into
159
Chapter 8: Fine-Tuning Your Fixes
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 159
160
Part II: Easy Enhancements for Digital Images
a second image (lower left). You can adjust the size by choosing Edit➪
Transform➪Scale, adjust the position by dragging with the Move tool, and

bar — that’s a general guideline, not a precise value. A 15-pixel feather for the
Elliptical Marquee tool might give you 50 or 60 partially transparent pixels,
half on either side of the selection border. Even a 1-pixel feather gives you a
selection with several “soft” pixels on either side.
Figure 8-4: A close-up look at no feathering, feathering, and
lots
of feathering.
161
Chapter 8: Fine-Tuning Your Fixes
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 161
162
Part II: Easy Enhancements for Digital Images
Anti-aliasing is similar to feathering
in that it softens edges: It’s designed
to hide the corners of pixels along
curves and in diagonal lines. You use
anti-aliasing with type (as I explain in
Chapter 13). You’ll often find that
anti-aliasing is all you need to keep
the edges of your selections pretty;
feathering isn’t required. Anti-
aliasing is a yes/no option, with no
numeric field to worry about. Figure
8-5 compares a diagonal with no anti-
aliasing, with anti-aliasing, and with a
1-pixel feather.
At 100 percent zoom (to the upper
left), the first line looks bumpy along the edges (it has a case of the jaggies,
you would complain to a friend or co-worker). The lower line looks soft and
mushy, out of focus. And the middle line? To quote Goldilocks, “It’s just

selection centers itself on the point where you click. The Shift and Option/
Alt keys can be used together. Holding down the Shift key before you click
and drag adds the selection to any existing selection. Holding down the
Option/Alt key before dragging subtracts the new selection from any existing
selection.
The Single Row Marquee and Single Column Marquee tools are simply clicked
at the point where you want a 1-pixel selection, running from side to side or
from top to bottom. These tools create selections that extend the full width
or full height of your image. You might use these tools to create a gridlike
selection that you can fill with color. Or you might never use them at all.
Take another glance at the Options bars in Figure 8-6. The four buttons to the
left in the Options bar, which you can use with any of the tools, determine
how the tool interacts with an existing selection.
ߜ New Selection: When you select the first button, any selection that you
make replaces an active selection (deselecting any previous selection).
If, with a selection tool, you click inside an active selection when the
first option is active, you can drag that selection in your image without
moving any pixels. When you haven’t already made a selection, these
tools always make a new selection, regardless of which button is active.
163
Chapter 8: Fine-Tuning Your Fixes
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 163
164
Part II: Easy Enhancements for Digital Images
ߜ Add To: When you have an active selection and need to add to that
selection, use the second button or simply press and hold down the
Shift key while dragging.
ߜ Subtract From: When you have a selection and need to deselect part of
it, use the third button. Say, for example, that you make a round selec-
tion and want to chop out the middle to make a donut shape. Click the

ߜ The Single Row Marquee and Single Column Marquee tools offer the four
buttons to determine how the tool will interact with an existing selection
and the Feather field. Although feathering a 1-pixel wide or tall selection
seems a little strange. . .
Figure 8-7: The buttons at the left on the Options bar control selection interaction.
Lasso selection tools
Three lasso selection tools are available in Photoshop CS4. On the Options
bar, all three of the lasso selection tools offer you the same basic features
that you find in the marquee selection tools, as you can see in Figure 8-8. You
can add to, subtract from, or intersect with an existing selection. You also
have the feathering and anti-aliasing options available. The Magnetic Lasso
tool offers three additional settings that help determine how it identifies
edges as you drag.
165
Chapter 8: Fine-Tuning Your Fixes
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 165
166
Part II: Easy Enhancements for Digital Images
Figure 8-8: The basic options for the lasso selection tools match those for the marquee
selection tools.
Controlled selections
Lurking within the Options bar Style drop-down
menu are two options worth noting: Fixed
Aspect Ratio and Fixed Size. Using the Fixed
Aspect Ratio option with the Rectangular
Marquee or the Elliptical Marquee tool forces
the selection to the height and width relation-
ship that you specify in the Options bar. This is
great for composing an image that you need at
a specific size, say to fit in a standard picture

ߜ Polygon Lasso tool: Rather than dragging, you click-click-click to make
straight selection segments, at any angle, for any distance. When you
position the cursor directly over your starting point, a little circle
appears to the lower right of the cursor to indicate that you’re back to
the start. Or simply double-click to finish the selection. If you press and
hold the Option/Alt key while dragging, you’ll temporarily switch to the
regular Lasso tool, which lets you drag your selection any way you want.
Using the Option/Alt key lets you switch back and forth between the
freeform drag of the Lasso tool and the perfectly straight selection bor-
ders of the Polygon Lasso tool.
ߜ Magnetic Lasso tool: When you need to select around a subject that has
good contrast with its background, the Magnetic Lasso tool can do a
great job. The perfect candidate for this tool is a simple object on a very
plain background. You can, however, use it with just about any image
where the edges of the area you want to select differ substantially from
the rest of the image. Click and drag the tool along the edge of your sub-
ject. If the tool misses the edge, back up and drag along the edge again.
If the edge makes a sudden change in direction, click to add an anchor
point. If the tool places an anchor point in the wrong spot, back up and
then press Delete/Backspace to remove the point. (By the way, if you
have a Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet hooked up, you can set the
Magnetic Lasso tool to vary its width according to pen pressure. Use the
button just to the right of the Frequency field on the Options bar.)
The Magnetic Lasso tool works by identifying the difference in color
along the edges, using all available color channels. From the Options
bar, use the Width field to tell the tool how wide of an area it can look in
to find an edge. The Edge Contrast field tells the tool how much the edge
must differ while searching. Use the Frequency field to choose the
number of anchor points the tool sets while outlining the selection.
The Quick Selection tool

When you use a low Tolerance setting, you select only those pixels in the
image that are very similar to the pixel on which you click. A high Tolerance
setting gives you a much wider range of color, which might or might not be
appropriate for the selection you’re making.
Refine Edge
If you look at the various pictures of the Options bar earlier in this chapter,
you might notice the Refine Edge button to the right. Refine Edge (shown in
Figure 8-10) helps you fine-tune your selections by adjusting the edges.
Here’s what you need to know about each of the options in Refine Edge:
ߜ Radius: When you’re trying to select an area with soft or fuzzy edges,
increasing the Radius value can help better define the edge of the
selected area of color.
ߜ Contrast: When soft or fuzzy edges of an area of color produce a speck-
ling of unwanted color, increasing Contrast is in order. When you boost
the Contrast value, Refine Edge tries to exclude pixels whose color
varies too much from the area being selected.
Figure 8-9: Drag through an area of color to
select the pixels under the brush and nearby
pixels of similar color.
13 327258-ch08.qxp 8/20/08 3:08 PM Page 168