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Get better tonal adjustments with the Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex Pro

August 29, 2013 by Rod Lawton 1 Comment

03 Midtones adjustment

Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast

Now I’ve reset the Highlights slider and pushed the Midtones slider up to maximum. This is more interesting. The textures in the stonework are now coming out much more clearly, but it’s had no impact on the shadows. Even so, there’s something a little flat-looking and unrealistic about the results, so I’ll reset the Midtones slider to zero and try out the Shadows slider.

04 Shadows adjustment

Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast

This is more like it. It turns out most of the interesting textures were in the shadows region, and this slider has really brought them out. In fact, I don’t need to push it all the way to maximum to get the desired effect – a setting of 69% looks about right.

05 Increasing saturation

Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast

I’ll finish off by increasing the Saturation value. This applies to the whole image, including highlights, midtones and shadows. It’s given this picture the perfect finishing touch.

06 The finished picture

Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast

See also

More Color Efex Pro tutorials

Pages: 1 2

Filed Under: Color Efex Pro, Google, Nik Collection, Software Tagged With: Clarity

Comments

  1. George H says

    October 5, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    Now that NIK is going away are there any programs that do what NIK’s TONAL CONTRAST does?

    Reply

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