Ahead of the Curve

Get to grips with the ultimate tonal tool, learn how to make creative colour shifts and get instant curves effects with our free presets

- James Paterson

Curves has long been one of the best tonal tools in Photoshop and Lightroom. Whether you want to boost contrast, tweak brightness, experiment with creative colour shifts or make any number of other adjustments, Curves is the tool for the job. As one of the Photoshop old guard that has been around for decades, many of us simply couldn't do without it. However, it isn't the easiest of tools to master and there are plenty of other simpler options available. But avoiding Curves would be a mistake as, with a little practice, it quickly becomes the most intuitive and versatile of tonal tools.

You'll find a Curves command in lots of different image-editing apps. As well as Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom, Curves features in Adobe Premiere, InDesign and more, so it's worth taking a few moments to master the tool. What's more, for Camera Raw and Lightroom users, there's a welcome new feature. Curves can now be used in combination with masking tools, so you can isolate part of an image and then tailor your curves to the area. Here, we've used the feature to make a series of targeted edits, selectively boosting the contrast, darkening the sky and shifting colours.

Presets and Colour curves