Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I am seeing a bug in the Curves adjustment layer in Photoshop when working on individual color channels. It all seems fine, except when I click on another layer and click back to the Curves layer. The Mode switches to RGB and a white curve appears in addition to the colored line from the previous color channel adjustments. The white RGB line is adjustable and changes the tone, but I can’t adjust the colored curve lines that also appear.

Tim’s Quick Answer: This behavior is by design in Photoshop. When you return to the Curves adjustment layer the RGB composite channel will be active, and you need to manually switch to a color channel to refine the per-channel curves.

More Detail: The Curves adjustment layer is one of the more powerful and flexible adjustments in Photoshop. In addition to being able to adjust brightness and contrast for specific tonal ranges in the image in variable ways, you can also apply similar color adjustments for different tonal ranges by working on the individual color channels.

The RGB composite curve enables you to adjust tonality with great flexibility. You can apply similar adjustments to the overall balance of colors by adjusting the Red (red versus cyan), Green (green versus magenta), or Blue (blue versus yellow) channels. These options are available from the popup at the top-left of the curve adjustment area on the Properties panel when adjusting a Curves adjustment layer.

When you first create a Curves adjustment layer or switch layers and return to the Curves adjustment, the channel popup will default to RGB regardless of what adjustments you may have previously applied with the layer. If you want to refine the adjustment for one of the color channels, you’ll need to select the channel by name from the popup.

In addition, you can only adjust the curve for the currently selected channel. If you have adjusted one or more of the color channels, you’ll see the curve for each of those channels when working in the RGB composite mode, along with the white curve representing the RGB composite channel. However, when you select an individual color channel, you’ll only see the curve for that channel and in turn can only adjust that specific curve.

Today’s Question: I am replacing my desktop computer with a laptop (MacBook Pro). Right now my storage via a USB hub and my external monitor via HDMI. I have four hard drives connected at each port. What would you recommend as a docking station for connecting the MBP to my monitor and external hard drives. I intend on upgrading my external drives to SSD. I do plan on removing the MacBook Pro when traveling.

Tim’s Quick Answer: Ultimately you want to get either a docking station or hub that is powered for maximum compatibility and that includes enough ports of the right type to meet your needs now and for the foreseeable future.

More Detail: In a general sense, both a docking station and a powered hub provide the same basic features, with a different form factor. There are seemingly countless options available, which can make it a little challenging to find the right product for your specific needs. But that also means there’s a very good chance that you can find something that is a great fit for your hardware configuration.

The cheaper approach would be to get a USB hub with the ports you need based on your current and anticipated future hardware. The most important thing if you’re thinking of this approach is to make sure the hub is powered, so that it will support having multiple bus-powered hard drives connected at once, for example.

In some cases, the hub might include a specific power connection, but more common with newer models is that one of the USB-C ports supports pass-through power. This enables you to connect a power adapter via a USB cable to the hub, so that adequate power is available to the devices you connect to the hub. Then you just need to find a powered hub with the right combination of ports based on the hardware you’re using.

For example, a popular hub from Belkin supports 100 watt pass-through power, includes an HDMI port, along with two USB-A ports and an SD card reader. However, you may need more ports, including possibly needing more USB-C ports depending on the drives you’re using.

You can find this hub here:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1905657-REG/belkin_avc008fqsgy_v2_connect_usb_c_6_in_1_multiport.html/BI/5752/KBID/6629/kw/BEAVC8FQSGV2/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xBEAVC8FQSGV2

If you want to really maximize the number of ports available, I recommend opting for a docking station, which you can think of as being a larger hub with more ports of various types. In some cases, the docking station also provides a support for your laptop.

The docking station I recommend considering is the CalDigit TS5 Plus. I consider this to be more of an advanced hub rather than a docking station, since it doesn’t include a mount for your laptop to connect to. However, it provides a great range of ports. That includes five USB-C ports, five USB-A ports, Thunderbolt and DisplayPort ports, and more. While it lacks an HDMI connector in favor of the newer Thunderbolt 5 connection, you could use a USB-C to HDMI adapter to connect a display using HDMI.

You can find this docking station here:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1890999-REG/caldigit_tbt5_ts5plus_us_amz_ts5_plus_thunderbolt_5.html/BI/5752/KBID/6629/kw/CATS5PLUS/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xCATS5PLUS

Again, the key is to make sure the hub or docking station you’re considering includes a power connection (in general a docking station will include power by definition), and that the hub includes the specific ports you need for your configuration. But be sure to also choose an option that features additional ports of the type you might use in the future. For example, you may have a number of hard drives that connect via USB-A, but as you replace those with newer hard drives they will mostly likely connect via USB-C instead.

Today’s Question: With the new Color and Vibrance adjustment layer in Photoshop, is it safe to say there’s no need to use the Color Balance adjustment layer anymore?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In general, I would say that the Color Balance adjustment layer is a bit outdated, though there are some situations where photographers might find it convenient to use.

More Detail: The Color Balance adjustment layer in Photoshop is relatively straightforward to use, and makes use of the RGB (red, green, blue) color model that many photographers are familiar with since it has been in use for such a long time. However, I consider other adjustment options to be better in most cases.

The Color and Vibrance adjustment layer provides the Temperature and Tint sliders for adjusting overall color balance in an image. While this may seem less flexible because there are only two sliders rather than the three for Color Balance, you can still arrive at the same overall color appearance with either adjustment. Also, I think the Temperature adjustment is more in line with the way photographers tend to think of color, allowing a shift between a cooler (more blue) or warmer (more yellow) color cast.

Furthermore, with the Temperature and Tint sliders now available alongside Vibrance and Saturation sliders, the Color and Vibrance adjustment layer is very convenient for adjusting the overall appearance of colors in a photo.

One of the benefits of Color Balance over Color and Vibrance is that with Color Balance you can independently adjust the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights in an image. However, if you want to exercise such granular control, I recommend instead working with a Curves adjustment layer, modifying the individual curves for the Red, Green, and Blue channels.

Another option that I often find to be even more convenient than adjustment layers (except when using adjustment layers for targeted adjustments that employ a layer mask) is to use the Camera Raw filter. As long as you won’t be using additional pixel-based layers with an image, you can convert the Background image layer to a Smart Object using the Filter > Convert for Smart Filters command. You can then apply the Camera Raw filter (Filter > Camera Raw Filter) as a Smart Filter, which enables you to double-click on the Smart Filter for Camera Raw on the Layers panel anytime you want to return to the Camera Raw dialog to modify your adjustment settings. This provides direct access to a wide range of adjustments, including the sliders for Temperature, Tint, Vibrance, and Saturation that are also available with the Color and Vibrance adjustment layer.

Today’s Question: When getting others to send me photos from their iPhone, they love to use iMessage; which is very low quality. What do you recommend for a process that is easy for non-photographers to use and yields the best quality?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I consider AirDrop to be the best option for sharing original media (including photos) between Apple devices (including iOS or macOS).

More Detail: There are a wide variety of options for sharing photos between devices, but when you want the original file (rather than a reduced-resolution JPEG for example) and both sender and receiver are Apple devices, I think AirDrop is the best approach.

The minor caveat with AirDrop is that the security settings default to only being able to receive content from someone who is in your Contacts list if using a mobile device. So, if you’re sharing with someone who doesn’t have you in their Contacts, they’ll need to change that setting first. To do so, go to the Settings app on the mobile device and choose General followed by AirDrop. At the top of the AirDrop page choose “Everyone for 10 Minutes”.

The sender can then go to the Photos app and either open the single photo they want to share or choose “Select” at the top-right and then tap on each photo to be shared. Then tap the Share button (the icon is a rectangle with an arrow pointing upward) and choose AirDrop from the popup that appears. Then tap the name of the device to share with, and the recipient will be notified with an option to accept.

Once they accept, the recipient can find the images in the Photos app. Note that by default the sort order for photos on the Library tab in the Photos app is by capture time. To make it easier to find the photo if they had been captured some time ago you can tap the menu button toward the top of the screen (it shows three horizontal lines) and choose “Sort by Recently Added” from the popup.

Today’s Question: As a follow up to the question about cropping versus stretching a photo for printing at a specific size, would Generative Fill provide a solution for resizing without cropping?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you could use Generative Fill (or even better, Generative Expand) to expand an image to fit a particular aspect ratio, so you wouldn’t need to crop or skew the image.

More Detail: As I explained in yesterday’s answer, if you want to print an image at a specific aspect ratio, you could crop the image to the applicable aspect ratio or transform the image to stretch it to match the intended aspect ratio. Another option I didn’t mention specifically would be to use Generative AI to expand the image to match the intended aspect ratio.

In effect, this is a variation on transforming the image to fit the preferred aspect ratio, though it involves adding additional pixels using AI rather than stretching the image to fit. This isn’t something that is available in Lightroom Classic (at least not yet), but it is available in both Camera Raw and Photoshop.

For example, you could open the image in Photoshop and set the Crop tool to an aspect ratio of 8×10 (the example output size in yesterday’s question), then instead of cropping the 8×12 image inward to remove pixels, you could expand the crop box outside the image area. On the Options bar you can then choose “Generative Expand” from the Fill popup. When you apply the crop, including applying the Generative AI prompt, the image will be expanded with additional pixels added so that the aspect ratio matches your intended print size.

Keep in mind that the results of using Generative Expand will vary depending on the content of the image. For example, expanding the image in an area of sky will generally produce very good results. Expanding an area that contains more complex details such as animals or people could yield results that are less than ideal. Still, Generative Expand is another solution for sizing an image to a different aspect ratio without cropping out any portion of the image.

Today’s Question: I want to send a couple of photos to be printed in a 8×10 size. When I resize in Lightroom Classic, it wants to crop the photo to fit. I don’t want any of the photo cropped out. Is there a way to size it in Lightroom Classic to be a certain size without cropping?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom Classic doesn’t really provide an easy way to resize an image without cropping. You can perform this task in Photoshop, but keep in mind that doing so will skew the image, potentially to the point of the photo looking rather distorted.

More Detail: Most digital cameras have an aspect ratio that corresponds to an image with dimensions of 8×12 rather than 8×10, though there is some variability in this. That means that in order to produce an 8×10 print you would need to crop two inches off the long side.

If you don’t want to crop the image, there are really only two choices. You could transform the image, altering the relationship between height and width to make it fit within an 8×10 frame. However, this can create considerable distortion, causing the subjects in the photo look taller and narrower than they actually are.

The other option would be to resize the image to fit within the printed area, but then leave empty space at the top and bottom of the print. For example, you could resize the image to be 6.667 inches tall and 10 inches wide, printing that on an 8×10 sheet of paper with two-thirds of an inch of blank space at the top and bottom of the print.

If you wanted to resize the image to fit specific dimensions, you can use the Image > Image Size command in Photoshop. Set the output resolution as desired (such as 300 pixels per inch), unlock the lock between the Width and Height (with the button showing a chain link icon to the left of these fields) and set the values for Width and Height to the output dimensions (taking into account whether it is a horizontal or vertical image of course). Click OK to apply the change.

You can get a sense of the distortion effect in Lightroom Classic by first setting the crop aspect ratio to the intended output size (such as 8×10 in this case) and then increasing the slider value for Aspect in the Transform section. Even at a maximum value of +100, however, the obvious distortion in the image won’t be enough to shift the image from 8×12 to 8×10, which is why Photoshop would generally be needed for this type of change.

But again, you will most likely find that the distortion is significant enough to be problematic, so you’ll likely want to either crop the image or print with empty space on the page.

Today’s Question: I’ve been exploring the “Blend If” sliders in Photoshop, and so I reviewed the documentation on the Adobe website. Their terminology makes it very confusing such as by using both “blended” and “unblended” to describe pixels that will be visible. Can you explain what the “Blend If” sliders are actually doing?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The “Blend If” sliders found in the Layer Style dialog in Photoshop enable you to combine two image layers to create a composite where you can hide or reveal pixels on each layer based on brightness levels.

More Detail: First off, I should clarify that the “Blend If” sliders do not relate to blend modes, which can be used to combine layers such as for a multiple exposure effect based on specific mathematical formulas that use the pixel values of layers as the input. Rather, the “Blend If” sliders are used to simply determine which pixels will be visible in the composite image based on their tonal (brightness) value.

Let’s assume, for example, that you have combined two images into a layered document. The upper layer consists of a relatively dark tree set against a very bright sky, and the underlying image features scattered cumulus clouds against a deep blue sky. You could then select the upper image layer and click the “Add a layer effect” button (the “fx” logo) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose “Blending Options” from the popup menu.

Initially, of course, the upper image layer will completely block the underlying layer from view, because the layers are opaque. But you can blend pixels from the upper and lower layers together based on their brightness values using the “Blend If” sliders.

At the bottom of the Blending Options section, you’ll find the “Blend If” sliders. The upper slider control is labeled “Current Layer”, but it would be more clear if it were instead labeled “Hide Current Layer If”. If you drag the white slider toward the left the brightest pixels in the current layer will be hidden from view. If you instead drag the black slider to the right the darkest pixels in the current layer will be hidden from view. You can also hold the Alt/Option key while clicking on one half of the slider handle to split it in two, which provides a degree of feathering for the transition between visible and not visible pixels.

The lower slider control is labeled “Underlying Layer”, but it would be more clear if it were labeled “Reveal Underlying Layer If”. If you drag the white slider to the left, you will reveal the brightest pixels from the underlying image layer. If you drag the black slider to the right, you will reveal the darkest pixels from the underlying layer. And again, you can Alt/Option-click on the slider handle to separate the controls to create a feathered effect.

With the example image layers noted above, you could, for example, drag the white slider to the left for the Current Layer control to hide the bright sky, revealing the scattered clouds in the sky image layer below. This would replace the bright sky with the more interesting cloudy sky. You could then drag the white slider for the Underlying Layer control to the left to reveal the clouds from the underlying image in all areas, making it look like the tree is enveloped in clouds or fog. You can also separate the sliders to provide some blending, such as to make the clouds revealed from the underlying image layer blend into the image more smoothly.

Today’s Question: Every time I use the Remove tool to clean up a blemish in Photoshop a new layer is created. Is it possible to perform all the cleanup work on one layer without so much clutter?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can simply turn off the “Create new layer” checkbox on the Options bar to prevent Photoshop from creating a new layer each time you use the Remove tool on an image.

More Detail: While I encourage the use of a separate image layer for image-cleanup work so that the underlying image pixels remain untouched, there’s generally no need to use more than one layer for this type of purpose.

The Remove tool includes a “Create new layer” checkbox on the Options bar, which can be a convenient option for making sure you’re using a separate layer for cleaning up blemishes. However, if you leave that checkbox turned on a new layer will be created every time you apply the Remove tool to an image.

There are two approaches you could use to avoid accumulating multiple image layers. My recommendation is to keep the “Create new layer” checkbox turned off, and then just be sure to create a new empty image layer whenever you’re first applying image cleanup to an image. The other approach would be to turn on the checkbox when first using the Remove tool on an image and then turn it off for subsequent cleanup work. But I think the former provides a more streamline workflow.

Keep in mind that you need to also be sure that the “Sample all layers” checkbox is turned on for the Remove tool on the Options bar to ensure that the underlying image layers (such as the Background image layer) are taken into account for the new cleanup pixels being placed on the separate cleanup layer.

Today’s Question: I noticed that the Lightroom mobile app on my iPhone was storing images taken on the phone [with the built-in Camera app]. How do I turn off this syncing?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can disable (or enable) the auto-import feature directly within the App Settings in the Lightroom mobile app.

More Detail: By default, photos you capture with a mobile device will only be added to the library in the Lightroom mobile app if you had used the Lightroom app to capture or import the photo. For example, photos you capture with the default Camera app on your device won’t be automatically added to Lightroom. Note that you can still browse photos on your device that are not in the Lightroom library by selecting the Device tab at the bottom of the app.

However, there is a setting you can use to enable automatic import, which you can obviously turn off if you later decide you don’t want that feature enabled.

To adjust the setting, first tap the “more” button, which is the three dots (ellipsis) at the top-right of the Lightroom mobile app. Choose “App settings” from the popup that appears, and then choose “Import” from the menu. In the “Auto Add from Device Photos” section at the top, you can enable the option for Photos and Videos individually. There is also a Screenshots option you can enable, which is only available once you’ve enabled Photos. You can obviously also disable any options that are enabled that you don’t want to make use of.

For example, you might want to enable synchronization for Photos and Videos, but not for Screenshots. The selected media types will then be added to the library in the Lightroom app, and therefore synchronize to the cloud, as soon as new photos and videos are captured.

Today’s Question: In several emails over the years, you’ve suggested resetting preferences in Photoshop or Bridge in order to fix a problem. If I reset the preferences however, does that mean that they would go back to the default settings and I would lose all the preference settings that I have input over time and been using? Or is this some way to save them?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, resetting preferences in Photoshop, Bridge, or Lightroom Classic will cause all settings in the Preferences dialog (and Color Settings in Photoshop) to revert to their default settings, requiring you to update them manually to your preferred settings.

More Detail: For as long as I’ve been using Photoshop (which has been over thirty years!) there has been the sometimes frustrating issue of needing to reset preferences. The same issue affects Bridge and Lightroom as well. The way I describe the issue is that if the software seems to behaving in an odd way that is different from what you would normally see, there’s a good chance that resetting preferences will solve the issue.

While resetting preferences often corrects issues where the application isn’t behaving normally, it does mean that any settings you have changed from their defaults will be lost. You’ll then have to go back and manually update the settings based on your own preferences. There isn’t a way to back up your settings, other than backing up the preferences files, but that approach would prevent the reset from actually taking effect.

What I recommend is to capture screenshots of all tabs of the Preferences dialog before you reset preferences, so you have an easy reference for your preferred settings. Note that for Photoshop in addition to the settings in the Preferences dialog, resetting the preferences will also reset the settings in the Color Settings dialog.

Note, by the way, that if you’re experiencing an issue that primarily affects the way the interface is displayed or with the application crashing unexpectedly, it is also possible that disabling GPU (graphics processing unit) support will resolve the issue.