Tip 6: Increasing local area contrast with Unsharp Mask.

This technique can add "punch" to a shot that's lacking that certain something. It's especially useful for images with plenty of texture - stone walls, grasses, etc. It uses the Unsharp Mask filter, which works by increasing the contrast between areas of different brightness. We're going to set the Radius value of the Unsharp Mask high enough to bump up the contrast of the whole image.

1. Duplicate your background layer - once you've applied this effect it's undoable, so you want to make sure you leave your original untouched.

2. Select Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. The values you use will depend on your image resolution and subject matter, but try Amount 10% - 30%, Radius 50 pixels, Threshold 0 levels. You'll want to keep this effect subtle: as with any sharpening, too much looks very unnatural.

Tip 7: Colorizing the sky with Hue/Saturation.

I found that some of my ancient negatives had a weird colour balance. Adjusting them so that the subject looked correct left the sky with an odd colour cast. The eye is very familiar with the true colour of the sky, so anything unusual about it is obvious. I ended up treating the sky separately and "blue-ing it up" with Hue/Saturation.

1. First you need to select the sky. I usually use the Magic Wand for this, with a Tolerance of about 15 and set to select Contiguous regions only. Just keep shift-clicking all over the sky until it's all selected. Use the Marquee or Lasso tools to add any last little areas you can't get with the Magic Wand.

2. Create a new layer from your selection by selecting Layer>New>Layer via Copy, or just press keystroke cmd(ctl)-J. Call this layer "Sky"

3. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer by selecting Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. In the dialog that appears click the "Group With Previous Layer" checkbox to make the adjustment work only on your Sky layer.

4. In the Hue/Saturation box click the "Colorize" checkbox. Set Hue to 218 or thereabouts - your eye will tell you the excact shade required. Now adjust saturation and lightness to get the amount of blueness you want. As with most effects, it pays not to overdo it: you want to be able to still see the underlying texture of the sky as it lightens towards the horizon, and an overly blue sky will look fake.

5. If you find there's an obvious line between the sky and the horizon, try adding a small feather - between 1 and 5 pixels - to your sky selection before creating your Sky layer.

Tip 8: Removing red-eye.

There are probably as many red-eye removal techniques as there are Photoshop users. This is how I do it. It's very quick and works on any size red spot. Because I use it so often I've recorded it as an action assigned to a function key.

1. Using the eliptical Marquee tool, select the area of red-eye. You don't have to worry about selecting the red-eye exactly with this method.

2. Choose the menu item Select>Modify>Expand and increase the size of the selection by 2 pixels.

3. Choose the menu item Select>Feather and set Feather Radius to 2 pixels.

4. Choose the menu item Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. In the Hue/Saturation dialog select the red channel and set Saturation to -100 and Lightness to about -75. Do the same for the magenta channel if there is any magenta present in the red-eye.

Because we expanded the selection slightly the only thing we have to watch for is that we don't inadvertently remove red colouring from the eyelids.

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