From the course: Photoshop for Designers: Color

Set the black-and-white point - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop for Designers: Color

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Set the black-and-white point

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- [Instructor] In this image, I will manually set the black and white points to improve the color in the whole image. So I'm going to remap my darkest pixel to my defined black point, and my lightest pixel to my defined white point. You can set black and white points in either Levels, Curves, or Exposure. I'm going to do it in Levels, and firstly I need to define what my black and white point are, so I'm going to double-click, first of all, on the black point dropper, and I've already got it defined here. This began as zero, zero, zero, complete black. I've changed it to seven, seven, seven, so that in the shadow areas, there'll be some detail and texture rather than solid black. And my white point, I have defined as 247, 247, 247 rather than the pure white of 255, 255, 255, and this is going to ensure that in the highlight areas, there will be ink rather than blank paper or paper white. So with those defined, let's start with the black point. And to find out where the darkest pixels are in the image, I'll hold down the option or alt key, and move my blank point slider towards the center. The first pixels that appear are the darkest pixels. Now I want to go for a clump of black. The problem with this technique is that when you let go, your display changes, so you have to make a mental note of where they are. So I'm going to set that back, and then move my blank point dropper to this area here, where I saw those black splodges appear. I'll click right there, and that has redefined the black point, and you can see that things are now looking a bit more punchy, if I just turn my preview on and off. I'll do the equivalent with the white point. Hold down the option or alt key, drag the slider towards the center. The first pixels that appear are the brightest pixels. Do we necessarily want to go with those? Well usually yes but not always. You can make a subjective decision, and I'm going to do that. I'm actually going to go with a highlight that is on the landing dock. So I'll choose my white point dropper, and I'll click right there. There's the before, and there is the after.

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