On nice thing in the full Photoshop is there are shortcuts to select shadows, midtones or highlight.
In Elements, those shortcuts are missing, and you need to use third party add-ons (Graffi, Hiddenelements...)
In many cases, you have obviously to select highlights or shadows. Selecting (or masking) midtones is less obvious, but in my experience, it is very important to avoid clipping or unwanted changes in shadows or highlights. When I want to add saturation with the hue/saturation adjustment, targetting midtones lets me go farther without clipping problems.
The first thing is to know which standard tools in Elements enable you to work selectively.
- If you work in raw, the recovery and fill light sliders provide a very good start
- In Elements, the following adjustments can target shadows, midtones or highlights: Shadows/highlights is obvious, but don't forget playing with midtones contrast mimics a useful S-curve. Adjust color curves is often overlooked, but it can select the tones range. If you are not satisfied with the hue/sat adjustment, why not use the adjust color/color variations selecting range and saturation... really worth practicing!
If you want to go further with the available tools in Elements, you can have a tremendous amount of control by using masks and gradients maps. I am thinking about a tutorial on this subject.
The main advice would be to take the time to analyse your image first and look at what could be improved in the different tone ranges. I'm sure Don Diego is with me on this matter. The tools to achieve your goal are present in Elements!
In Elements, those shortcuts are missing, and you need to use third party add-ons (Graffi, Hiddenelements...)
In many cases, you have obviously to select highlights or shadows. Selecting (or masking) midtones is less obvious, but in my experience, it is very important to avoid clipping or unwanted changes in shadows or highlights. When I want to add saturation with the hue/saturation adjustment, targetting midtones lets me go farther without clipping problems.
The first thing is to know which standard tools in Elements enable you to work selectively.
- If you work in raw, the recovery and fill light sliders provide a very good start
- In Elements, the following adjustments can target shadows, midtones or highlights: Shadows/highlights is obvious, but don't forget playing with midtones contrast mimics a useful S-curve. Adjust color curves is often overlooked, but it can select the tones range. If you are not satisfied with the hue/sat adjustment, why not use the adjust color/color variations selecting range and saturation... really worth practicing!
If you want to go further with the available tools in Elements, you can have a tremendous amount of control by using masks and gradients maps. I am thinking about a tutorial on this subject.
The main advice would be to take the time to analyse your image first and look at what could be improved in the different tone ranges. I'm sure Don Diego is with me on this matter. The tools to achieve your goal are present in Elements!