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Tutorial: How to Use Levels (A Guide)
Many have mourned the fact that Photoshop Elements does not have the curves tool that is so useful for making icons and other graphics. However, it does have another feature that can be used to achieve a similar effect: levels. Therefore, I have decided to create a tutorial on how exactly levels can be used to enhance photos for icon and graphic making. I was prompted by a question over at icon_tutorial, and somehow managed to crank out this tut. :D

MIRY'S GUIDE TO LEVELS

We are going to be starting with this cap from GoF, capped by dj_capslock.



It's a fairly boring image, with lots of red, orange and brown hues. Nice for a movie, but not for an icon. So, we make a new adjustment layer by clicking on the little circle at the bottom of the layer palette, and then choose "Levels..." on the drop-down menu.



This should bring up the levels dialogue box.



Each part of the levels dialogue box serves a different purpose. The eyedroppers are used to select an area that should be white, grey, or black. The histogram shows what the levels look like--don't worry too much about this. The sliders represent black, grey, and white. Adjusting the sliders can up the levels of a certain tone in the image. This can sound very confusing at first, but stick with me. Some things are better demonstrated than said.

By moving the black slider slightly to the right, we make the darker parts of the image a bit darker. By moving the white slider to the left, we get nice, bright highlights. The grey slider you can leave alone, or move to the the left to make the midtones lighter or to the right to make the midtones darker. With a little experimentation, you'll get the hang of this. This was my result:




So now we have nice contrast, but still a very orange cap. So, switch channels. All this time we've been working on the RGB channel. This means that all changes have evenly affected levels of red, green, and blue in the image--since all colors were affected, only tonal change can be seen, not change in hue. So, we now go to the drop-down box that says "RGB" and switch to "Red." The interface for red levels is the same as for RGB. However, the sliders have a different effect.

When the sliders are moved to the left, more red is added. When they are moved to the right, the levels of red in the image are lowered. This works for each of the three sliders: black, grey, and white. So, moving the black slider to the right lowers the red in the darker tones of the image. Moving the grey slider to the right lowers the red of the middle tones, and moving it the left ups the red of the middle tones. Moving the white slider to the left increases the red of the lighter tones.

Playing around with the sliders on the red channel can create a nice effect, but requires some experimentation. Since the image we are working with is very, very red, we can lower the red levels by dragging the black and grey sliders to the right.



The result looks a lot more nuetral, but still isn't great. For a dramatic effect, we can pull the sliders quite far to the right, and have a very green image. However, right now I'm looking for a more nuetral image, so I move onto the green channel. Adding a lot of green to an image can make it look very yellow and unnatural, so made little adjustments until you get something nice. It's important not to make very drastic changes with levels, as the image quality can be decreased. However, tweaking the levels won't have much of an impact on quality.



This is looking good, but is still too yellowy. So, we go to the blue channel. By raising the blue levels, we balance out the green, and make the image more purple. This creates a fairly nuetral, pretty effect.



If you are dissatisfied with your image at this point, feel free to go back and readjust the levels on different channels. You should be able to come up with something pretty good-looking with a little work. Always remember not to do anything too extreme with levels, or you'll end up with an ugly image. Of course, everything has it's time and it's place, and rules are meant to be broken--so go wild, if that's your vision. ;D

The image I've created so far is fairly boring. It's not creative or beautiful, it's neutral. The reds were played down and the blues played up, and contrast was added. Now we want to spice it up. So, create a new levels layer. Leave the RGB alone, or adjust it slightly. I think the image has good contrast, so I leave that be. Then I go to the red channel.

For a more interesting image, I lowered the red levels drastically, put added just a touch more red to the lighter areas, as shown below. Cool effect, huh?



There are lots of other things we can do to this cap, but I'm going to stop here. Hopefully I've shown you some of the great things the levels function can do, and given you a jumping off point for your own work. Please show me what you've done with this tutorial, if you end up using it! Keep it mind, though, that it's a guide, not a recipe. Things won't go horribly wrong if you don't follow the instructions exactly. In fact, they'll turn out much better.

Here are a few other examples of what levels can do, just for reference:



TO



With the levels:

RGB Input Levels 0, 1.00, 255
Red Input Levels: 0, 1.43, 223
Green Input Levels: 0, 0.94, 255
Blue Input Levels: 32, 0.74, 255

Levels can also be used to make pretty black and white icons.



With a black/white gradient map applied...



And now with levels...



Pretty nice, huh? The levels used are:

RGB Input Levels: 9, 1.00, 135

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and gotten something out of it! Feel free to friend me for more tutorials, icons, art and writing. As always, I am willing to help you have any questions about this tutorial, and I love feedback as well.

<3
Miry