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Levels - A How to and Basic Understanding (Now a PDF!)


Mike Ryan

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This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download  

Download the 'PDF' from Mediafire!

 

Welcome to LEVELS

A How To on Using Levels

Where is the Tutorial?

Effective as of May 17th, 2008 many of my tutorials will be reformatted into a higher standard '.PDF'. Because of this, I have more control over the file itself in the case that this thread receives any damages - such as being locked, deleted, or corrupted. As well, this adds mobilization to my tutorials and allows for the tutorials to be read offline.

 
 
Edited by Woodsy
Fixed PDF link
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Good to hear you like it :wink: I didnt think it would be fair to only be able to map color levels onto an image, you need to atleast be able to increase the levels :D

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I'm sure that the K from CMYK stands for Key not Kill, but aside from that there's some very hand information in there, thanks very much :)

dA

Son, someday you will make a girl happy for a short period of time. Then she'll leave you & be with men that are ten times

better than you can imagine. These men are called musicians. :D

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CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Kill (Black).

You sure about that? ;)

Very good tutorial, though. I now understand Levels! (Levels has baffled be to this day... mostly because of my unwillingness to learn it ... :roll: )

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Thanks for pointing out the mistake with Kill instead of Key. I am guessing that is what you were refferring to, Pyro? Also, glad to pass on the knowledge of Levels with others!

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I'm quite happy that my call for "More Tutorials Like This" has produced such rapid results. Sticky'd!!

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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I just worked through your tutorial. Very good. Well written and easy to follow. I learned a lot more than I ever knew about "Level". I'm probably wrong, but it looks like adjusting the "Key" is pretty much the same (but better) as adjusting with the "Brightness/Contrast" command.

Thanks for your time and effort, much appreciated.

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I'm probably wrong, but it looks like adjusting the "Key" is pretty much the same (but better) as adjusting with the "Brightness/Contrast" command.

You're not wrong, in fact. Levels is much more useful and adaptable than Brightness/Contrast. :-)

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Yes, much more adaptable as it allows you to adjust your input amount of brightness and adjust it appropriatly via your output brightness. I might include this into this tutorial later.

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Not to mention that you can control the brightness as it relates to individual color channels. :-)

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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This has opened up Levels to me, and is proving an invaluable tool. From the tutorial itself to what you and David have been speaking of, I can see this being used more frequently as time passes, and my comfort with Levels increases.

Thanks once again, Mike.

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what you and David have been speaking of

What have they been speaking of? Do you mean that mysterious forum random users seem to mention but no-one seems to know anything about?

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No, Sabrown, we are speaking of using Levels as an extra powerful Brightness and Contrast tool, not a mysterious forum with a known purpose or level of understaning. What are you talking about?

Speaking of this tutorial, it will be reformated soon including sources, more screenshots, more information, and a few extras.

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I wish to thank you again for unveiling the misterious paths of levels (it really helped me a lot with an image I am making) and, if I may suggest something I think yours, Pretty Darn Neat on Curves and I remember also a tutorial from David Atwell about gradient mapping (not sticked?) should , besides being sticked, have their own section (Use of PDN tools, effects or something) as far as I hope there will be more and more tutorials like this,

Ciao

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Really glad to help you out Topezia. I might post my next tutorial in the lineups tonight. As for the dedicated section, as much as I agree, a mod or admin will just say that is what the help topics or the wiki is/are for.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Hi. I am new to Paint.net and to all other photo manipulation software, for that matter, so bear with me. I have a series of black and white photos which I have taken over the years. I am now going to have them in a gallery and they all need to be approximately the same shade of gray. That is to say, because the photos have been taken with different film stocks and under different lighting, they all look just a bit different. Is there any way to find out the exact saturation point for one photo, and then copy it to all the other photos? I have tried looking under "Levels," but it doesn't seem to give me the RGB reading for a photo, just the histogram, but no numbers associated with it. This may be a basic question, but please help.

Kelly Williams

http://www.kelly-williams.com

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Unfortunetly there is no basic way that has been released (*Cough* Pyrochild *Cough*). At the moment your best bet is to play around with the 'Key' Levels and try to match but this could be difficult and tedious. I am sorry!

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Mike I would like to thank you for making a better understanding of the levels...

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Captain need more power. Are more PDN hehe

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