image adjustments in photoshop

Adjusting images and creating effects on them without damaging the original image can be very challenging. Photoshop, as with most image editing problems, can solve this. This past week, I learned that you can create Adjustment and Smart Layers on an image without damaging it permanently.

I used to only adjust levels and the hue/saturation of an image using the shortcut keys in Photoshop. Adjustment layers allow you to still create the effects, just on a new layer so as not to change the image indefinitely. You add a new adjustment layer and then you can reduce the opacity if you went a little too overboard on adding a gaussian blur or sharpening an image too much. The single best thing about them though, is that if you want to go back and change levels, filters, or saturation, after you've printed the image out, and you saved your image as a .psd file, you can.  This newly discovered tool for me allows for versatility and saves a lot of time. I highly recommend using adjustment layers and smart filters over applying these effects directly to the image.