Linear Curves

Photographers who claim to love using their photos 'straight out of the camera' should start with a linear cuve - as it is straight out of the camera without the manufacturer's secret sauce. For most situations you won't need to use linear curves, but from time to time with very flat subjects, starting without the manufacturer's secret sauce can make it easier to achieve the edit you're after.

Like to view another Photo Process tutorial? There's more content from this section listed below or your can view content from different sections in the menu above.

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  32-Bit Processing (Part 1) What is 32-bit processing and why would you want to use it? 32-bit processing gives you access to a broader range…

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  32-Bit Processing (Part 2) After viewing Part 1 you'll understand what 32-bit processing is all about. In Part 2, you can see one example of how…

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  3D Lut Creator When you get into editing colour, you may find changes you want to make don't seem to be possible with the colour…

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  B&W Conversions Unless we're using an achromatic sensor, our files are always colour, so how do we convert them into black and white? There are…

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  Blacks We're told we need a good distribution of tones to make a beautiful photograph - and this is true in most cases. However, even…

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  Blend Modes - Part 1 If you edit with Photoshop, you have access to blend modes within the layers panel, but what exactly are blend…

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  Blend Modes - Part 2 There are a number of popular Photoshop techniques that are based on blend modes. While many of them have been…

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  Blend Modes - Part 3 Blend modes can be useful for both creative and practical editing. For instance, you can create a beautiful soft focus…

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  Clarity If you're looking for a quick and cheerful way to give your image a little more punch and presence, clarity can do it, but…

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  Curve Problems If you've attended a Dr Les Walkling workshop on Photoshop, he'll explain to you why Photoshop has some major problems with the way…

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  Curves Although you mightn't realise it, most of the editing we do is based on curves, but using an easier interface with sliders! However, using…

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  Filing How do you file your photographs? On a hard drive or in the cloud, of course, but what type of folder structure do you…

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  L*a*b* Color You know what an RGB file is all about (red, green, blue). Well, there's another colour model that does things a little differently…

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  Levels If you're struggling with curves a little, start with levels. In the levels dialog there are just three sliders to play with and you'll…

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  Linear Curves Photographers who claim to love using their photos 'straight out of the camera' should start with a linear cuve - as it is…

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  Luminosity Masking When we first think of making a mask, it's usually of a subject, like a tree or a person. Luminosity masking doesn't look…

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  Monitors Instead of buying a new camera or lens, should you be buying a better monitor? In digital photography, no device is more important than…

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  Raw Processing If you're working in Lightroom or Capture One, the fact you're processing a raw file is no longer obvious. Even if you open…

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  Selections and Masking There's a good chance much of this tutorial will be thankfully out of date as AI masking and selecting improves - and…

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  Selective Colour Our first choices when adjusting colours in Photoshop are usually a Hue/Saturation or Colour Balance adjustment layer and while they essentially do a…

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  Shape, Sparkle & Pop Towards the end of the editing process, I often find my images have lost some of their original tonality and look…

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  Sharpening - Part 1 The first question to ask yourself is, do you actually need to sharpen your photos, or are they quite sharp enough?…

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  Sharpening - Part 2 Okay, so we've decided we need to apply a little sharpening to our photos - how do we do it? In…

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  Vignetting I have been known for heavy vignetting in the past - it was a style used in the darkroom that I carried over into…

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  White Balance White balance. Colour balance. Colour cast. Sometimes an intentional colour cast is exactly what we want, while on other occasions a natural colour…