Contrast Adjustment by Selective Colour

This method is used as an alternative to the normal curves adjustment to better control specific contrast levels in a mono image. It refers specifically to CS2 although I believe other versions of PS should follow closely.

Firstly convert your image as you would normally and then add a selective colour layer (Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Selective Colour). At the top of the options box that pops up is a list of colours and below that are four sliders. Because we are dealing with a mono image the only colour channels that we are concerned with are the black, neutral and white and the only slider we need is the black one.


By choosing the relevant colours from the drop down box and moving the black slider you can then control the amount of contrast within the shadows, midtones and highlights respectively. This gives you more precise control than with a normal curves adjustment and the effects are much easier to fine tune. It also allows you to bias an image more easily towards either a low or high key effect, without compromising on the rest of the image.

Once you have the effect you are after you can still add a normal Brightness/Contrast layer to influence the overall contrast, but remember to keep any adjustments small as any large adjustments may start to affect the quality of the image.

Hope this helps

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