PhotoKit-EL Layers Series

While PhotoKit-EL comes with a variety of effects for correcting common image problems, the real power of PhotoKit-EL is the ability to build up a series of effects for total image correction. It's common that more than one effect needs to be run on an image. Doing so will increase the layer count and adds to the file size but with careful layer management, the results are worth it.

In the previous section you learned how to run PhotoKit-EL, turn the layer off and on and how to use the Eraser to control the results. In this section multiple effects will be run in a series to produce a final result that significantly improves the image-but at the expense of creating multiple layers. Above is the result of a single 'Boost Contrast 3' effect. Below we'll add a second PhotoKit-EL effect, the 'Darken Top 1/2' from the Darken Gradations Set. This adds depth and makes the sky darker at the top.

While that adds an improvement, there's more to do. Even though the image was shot under late afternoon light adding an additional warmth to the shot will improve it. Adding warmth to most sun lit shots is common. However, to further improve the final image adding some image sharpness will crispen up all the details. Below is the result of adding two additional effects, 'Warming 3' from the Color Corrections Set and 'Edge sharpen 3' from the Sharpener & Smooth Set.

As you can see, the layer count is adding up. If you were to save this image now it would be almost four times the file size as the original flattened image that you started with. To really use the PhotoKit-EL layers, it's important to learn how to manage them.

While you could just flatten the image from the Layers palette and get back to the original file size, you would lose the ability to do any further editing or change your mind about the results. A smarter approach would be to simply merge the top layers down until you have a single adjusted image layer.

In the screen shots above, the command to 'Merge Down' was repeated three times to get a final single adjustment layer. Double clicking in the layer name allows you to rename the layer to something more descriptive. We've renamed the final layer to 'Adjusted'.

To show how a few PhotoKit-EL steps can make a big improvement in your image, move your mouse over the image below to see a Before & After.

Now that you've learned how to use PhotoKit-EL to make a series of image corrections, it's important to understand how to save your images. Please read the Saving section by clicking HERE.