shadow/highlight

Erica:
I am no PS expert but I don’t believe so. Increasing each an equal amount may keep the proportion between highlights and shadows constant, but you are still increasing both by 3( in this example) witch means darker shadows and brighter highlights and a more contrasty image at the very least.

P.S. great playing pool with you the other night, the story is to be continued : )

they don’t cancel each other,

highlights works on bright areas by making them darker (recovering detail)
shadows works on dark areas by making them brighter (recovering detail)

if you put both to 100% you end up with a very flat image with little contrast.

if you’re talking about the shadow/highlight adjustment in CS, no. for a primer, see: http://www.digitalproducer.com/2003/10_oct/tutorials/10_27/pscsshadow031028.htm
or
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-2382.html

from what i can tell is happening, it recovers detail just above and below the histogram’s absolute end points.

be sure to click the “show more options” box in the lower right corner and play around with it. you’ll notice after a bit that too much is WAY too much.

i’m not sure if my method is correct or not, but i adjust my overall tonality first, then bring up the shadows or tone down the highlights in a layer as needed for a specific area on the image, then use hide or reveal layer mask and brush to paint the areas i want to adjust.

i use it so much i set up a hot key.

Nope is the correct answer.
The highlight sliders only look after the hilis and the shadows only look after the shadows. use the midtone contrast as well, it make a big difference if you’ve worked both ends of the range and it’s beginning to look HDRy.

I find some shots are best adjusted by this control before curves but not they’d be the obvious ones that exceed the dynamic range of a digital sensor and just dont sit right.

Be careful on how much you use these. Trying to recover too much of the highlights can lead to a blah grey-blue highlight. Pushing either too much in the amount, but keeping the tonal width small, can lead to halo effects.

Here’s the settings I use as a defaulst starting point for either (Always do this on a duplicated layer, so you can go back):

Shadows: Amount 15/Tonal Width 15/Radius 30
Highlights: Amount 10/Tonal Width 10/Radius 30

With either, adding a mmidtone contast of 10-15 looks goos as well.

http://www.photoshopkillertips.com/

There’s a Photoshop User TV? Seriously? I spend close to eight hours a day in Photoshop, and even I find that dorky.

TIme for your own stupid PS TV channel?

I can see it now… “Photoshoptastic! with your host Brian Frank!” (of course the intro would be yelled out by a Rod Roddy wannabe)

Mmmmmm…dreamy