Editing your digital images without the mystery
 

Welcome to Ars Workshops, and thank you for paying at the door. While you're taking your seats and SPITTING OUT YOUR GUM, I'll explain a little what the Ars Workshops are all about. This is the first of a series of digital imaging guides I'll be doing that take the knowledge gained after years of banging my head against the Photoshop wall and put them together in a non-ouchy format for you to enjoy. This first one outlines a number of typical tweaks, enhancements and fixes done by consumer-oriented imaging programs that get decent results, but do a better job of keeping you in the dark about how images work or what the actual problem was.

We'll cover a number of goals like adjusting contrast, warming images up and reducing noise from shadows in a more accurate and controlled way. Then we'll get into advanced stuff like masking but all explained in an almost-too friendly, "why are you touching my arm?" sort of way. As for enlarging your cat's eyes, that will have to wait for the coming tutorials. For some people, making manual what was automatic may seem like a needless complication, but the idea is to help you understand certain fundamentals in digital imaging and give you the ability to fix common problems and create complex effects without having to find the plug-in that does it for you.

http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/mystery.ars/1