Kaboom Your Photography!

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Photoshop Elements /

Burning & Dodging /

Selecting Tones /

Tone Selections

With a Gradient Map /

2 - Select a Tone

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Again . . .

The shadows are red.

The midtones are white.

The highlights are blue.

Let's select one of these tones/colors.

Be sure to check off as you go along.

Choose the Tone Range

You can move the two white color stops to expand or narrow the range of tones selected.

Here's the gradient that was saved.

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Let's say you want to select a narrow range of midtones.

Click, hold, and drag each white color stop to a new position.

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Here's the saved gradient compared with the modified gradient.

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Saved Gradient Gradient with Narrowed Midtones

Select the Tone Range

1) Use the Magic Wand tool to select, say, the red areas.

Adjust the tolerance to select the portion of the red area that you want to select.

Enter a larger number in the Tolerance box to select more of the red area.

If you haven't already done so, go to Magic Wand Tool & Tolerance.

Deselect Contiguous in the options bar.

By deselecting Contiguous, all of the red areas are selected.

If Contiguous is selected instead, only the red area that is clicked is selected.

2) Click the Eye icon for the the Gradient Map adjustment layer to hide the layer.

The marching ants of the selection remain.

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3) Go to Select > Feather to feather the selection, if needed.

4) Make changes to the selection, such as using a Levels adjustment layer to modify the exposure or contrast.

Saving the Photograph

If you haven't already done so, go to Saving Files.