This tutorial shows you to add contrast and extend dynamic range for your B&W photos by converting them into duotones, tritones, or quadtones. The tutorial also demonstrates how to add some artistic toning effects, like sepia or brown tones for an antique appearance. Printing duotone images can be tricky. This tutorial explains why and offers practical advice. You'll also come away with some duotone, tritone, and quadtone recipes you can try with your photos, including platinum, palladium, selenium, and bronze tones.

Photography with a digital SLR is similar to photography with color slide film. Both allow the photographer to capture rich, saturated colors. Both also have a rather narrow dynamic range compared with color negative film.

This tutorial describes a simple technique for using a single RAW image or, better yet, when circumstances allow, a pair of exposures: one for shadow detail and another for highlight detail.

Uwe Steinmueller, the well-known photographer who runs www.outbackphoto.com, suggested that we collaborate on a series of tutorials that start from the basics and proceed to more advanced techniques for adjusting tonal balance, contrast, and brightness. It sounded like a good idea, so this is Part 1 in the series. This tutorial explains the concepts of tonal range, contrast, and brightness. It also demonstrates some of the common problems photographers face.

Part 2 picks up on the discussion of the concepts of tonal range, contrast, and brightness by explaining how to make the adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW II. If you wanted to know what the difference is between the Exposure, Brightness, and Shadows sliders in ACR II, you'll find the answer here.

If you prefer the HTML version, you can view it on Uwe's site. His version also includes Uwe's sidebar comments.

Part 3 continues the discussion of the concepts of tonal range, contrast, and brightness by explaining how to use the Photoshop Levels and Curves dialogs. The discussion goes beyond the basics of Levels and Curves to explain how layer masks can help you refine your tonality adjustments.

If you prefer the HTML version, you can view it on Uwe's site. His version also includes Uwe's sidebar comments.

This discussion of tonal range, contrast, and brightness continues with an explanation of the Photoshop CS Shadow/Highlight command. Some photographers are reluctant to use the Shadow/Highlight command. It does take some practice and you need to understand how the various settings affect your photo. If you have photos that are underexposed because of backlighting or or overexposed because of fill flash, the Shadow/Highlight command can be the quickest way to restore them.

The Photoshop Lens Blur filter is useful for reducing Depth of Field (DOF) in photographs. A common problem however, is just the opposite: to extend DOF. Often, a single photograph cannot capture all of the detail. Either background features or foreground features end up being out of focus.

Photoshop CS4 has improved the Auto-Align Layers and Auto-Blend Layers commands so that it's possible to make a composite photograph from a stack of photos with each shot with a different point of focus.

Making selective adjustments to the contrast of an image is possible with Photoshop’s Burn and Dodge tools, but you cannot be certain of their effect until you actually brush a stroke, and then your only choices are to accept the adjustment or reverse it completely with an Undo operation. For more control over burning and dodging, you can use a combination of the Brush tool and an Overlay layer. This tutorial shows you how.

Want to get the rich, saturated colors that Photographers associate with Fuji Velvia film? The quick and easy solution is to use the Hue/Saturation command in Photoshop. Simple is not necessarily better. In this case, it can add unwanted artifacts to your image and amke JPEG artifacts and digital noise more evident.

Want to add a truly defining touch to your image? Want to give your image a dreamy or romantic appearance? A diffuse glow can take a good photo and make it into a great photo. The idea is not to blur the entire image, but to add a halo or glow to to a desired range of tones. You can add richness and shape to your shadows or give your highlights a high key effect. "Giving Your Photo a Glow" shows you how to use a combination of blurs, layer blend modes, and blending techniques (in particular, the Blend If sliders) to add a diffuse glow.