Levels & Curves in Color Efex Pro 4 is a great filter for adjusting the brightness, contrast, and tonality of your image. It also lets you adjust the individual color channels to fine tune the image even more.

Let’s take a closer look at the filter controls.

Levels & Curves filter control options

The Channel drop down menu enables you to adjust the RGB, Luminosity, Red, Green, and Blue channels. Luminosity is unique in that it allows you to affect the brightness and tonality of the image without affecting the color.

Channel drop down options

The Opacity slider controls how much of the filtered effect is being applied to the image. Its default value is 100%.

The Tone Curve grid allows you to use anchor points to manually change the tone curve, (double-click on an anchor point to remove that point). The highlights can be manually adjusted with an anchor point in the upper right portion of the curve. The shadows can be manually adjusted with an anchor point in the lower left portion of the curve.

Tone Curve enhancement

The Levels section is controlled by the three tabs at the bottom of the Tone Curve grid. The dark tab on the left controls the Shadow adjustments; moving it to the right will darken the shadows. The white tab on the right controls the Highlight adjustments; moving it to the left will lighten the highlights. The grey tab in the middle is the Midtone adjustment; moving it to the right will darken the midtones, while moving it to the left will lighten the midtones. These controls are also available independently on all five of the channels.

Levels tabs

Tip: Use Levels & Curves in a stack with other Color Efex Pro 4 filters to maximize and streamline your workflow. You can make post processing edits and creative enhancements in one application of the software!