#adjustment layers

alright so, the way i get it, the curves tool is like the simple way to fuck with the brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. and the rbg channels on a piece all at once to change the colors and stuff. how you use it depends on piece to piece and whatever lighting/colors you’re trying to correct/accomplish

this is the curves tool. hit ctrl + m to bring it up or go to image > adjustments > curves. the stuff i circled in red is the only thing we care about today, ok, the other options like grid size i never touch so idk exactly what they do

so here’s this little guy and an untouched curves tool, all i did was open it. i use the black and white sliders on the lower left and right corners, respectively, and the diagonal line in the middle can be moved and it curves like a parabola! hence the curves tool name im assuming. the channel is set to RBG by default.

moving the black slider toward the middle of the graph saturates the image, and makes especially the darker colors really dark, and vice versa for basically everything this tool does lmao

moving the white slider toward the middle desaturates the image, and makes especially the lighter colors really bright. you can move them both simultaneously, and the combination is a piece with darker darks, brighter lights, and more overall saturation (dont have a pic sowwy)

like i said, the middle diagonal line of the graph can be grabbed and moved and it adjusts stuff!

bending the curve down gives a little more saturation and darkens the entire picture, the more you pull it down the more extreme

pulling the line upwards lightens the image and desaturates it a bit!

you can also move the line in TWO SPOTS so it looks like a little soft wiggly line, and it does both of the above! so in the end you’ll end up with a brighter, more saturated image with darker darks and lighter lights (like using the sliders)

you can use the sliders and the curve at the SAME TIME to just absolutely fuck shit up

now on to the SPICY rgb channels:

there’s three channels: red, green, and blue. in the curves tool, from my understanding, you can adjust the OVERALL level and saturation of these three colors in ur image in one go!

when you click “channel”, you get a drop down menu for each channel, and each channel also has two sliders and a middle movable line like the default RBG channel! and like the default channel, moving the line up and down either ADDS or SUTRACTS that WHOLE color from the image (at least thats what i think is happening ahgaskjsf). so in like this example, moving the curved line up made my buddy much more red!

likewise, moving the curve down subtracts red, so that this becomes much more muted and green. and the same thing for each individual channel, it’s just settings you gotta fiddle with to see what happens!

changing the channel to blue, we can do it all too! moving the line up adds blue, 

and moving it down subtracts it. this is also true for the green channel im just not gonna attach any more pics ahghgkasdhgasdf