Mood Swing: One Photo, Three Ways

Session 4 · Photo Fixer-Upper: Basic Edits

You are taking one photograph and building three different versions of it, side by side on a single canvas. Same photo every time. The only thing that changes is the grade: warm and inviting, cool and corporate, high contrast and editorial.

This is a real thing marketing people do. When you cannot decide on a look, you do not argue about it, you build all three and put them next to each other so everyone can see the difference.

What You Turn In

Midpoint turn-inLastName_Corrected.jpgYour corrected photo on its own. Submit this as soon as you finish Step 4.
Final turn-inLastName_MoodSwing.jpgThe finished three-panel canvas.

Pick Your Photo

Pick one of the seven photos posted with this assignment. Every one of them was chosen because it has room to be pushed in different directions. Do not use your own photo today, and do not use one you already edited.

A Quick Refresher Before You Start

Why adjustment layers and not Image > Adjustments

Image > Adjustments changes the actual pixels. Once you click OK and save, that change is baked in and you cannot get the original back. An adjustment layer sits above your photo and changes how it looks without touching it. You can reopen it, change your mind, turn it off, or throw it away at any point. That difference is the entire reason this project works: you are going to reuse one corrected photo three times and grade it three different ways. If you burned the corrections into the pixels, you could not do that.

Step 1  ·  5 min  ·  core

Open and Crop Your Photo

Every panel in your final canvas is a 2 by 3 rectangle, so the crop has to happen first.

  1. Go to File > Open and choose one of the seven photos.
  2. Select the Crop Tool from the toolbar. Keyboard shortcut: C.
  3. Look at the options bar. Find the dropdown on the left. It should already say Ratio. Leave it there, do not change it to W x H x Resolution, that mode locks an exact pixel or inch size instead of a proportion and will make your crop box tiny.
  4. Type 2 in the first field and 3 in the second. These two fields have no unit attached in Ratio mode, they are just a proportion. Your crop box is now locked to 2 by 3 no matter how big or small you drag it.
  5. Still in the options bar, find the checkbox labeled Delete Cropped Pixels and make sure it is unchecked. Leaving it unchecked means you can re-crop later without losing anything.
  6. Drag the crop box around until your subject sits where you want it. Drag from inside the box to move the photo underneath it.
  7. If your horizon or a building edge is tilted, click the Straighten button in the options bar (it has a small level icon), then drag a line along whatever should be level. Photoshop rotates and re-crops for you.
  8. Press Enter (Return) to commit.
Check your work: The canvas is now taller than it is wide, in a 2 to 3 proportion. If it still looks like the original shape, your ratio fields did not take. Press Ctrl+Z and set them again.
Step 2  ·  8 min  ·  core

Fix the Exposure

Before you can give a photo a mood, it has to be correct. Correct first, style second. Doing it the other way around means you spend the rest of the project fighting a problem you never fixed.

  1. At the bottom of the Layers panel, click the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon (the half black, half white circle) and choose Curves.
  2. The Properties panel opens with a diagonal line running across a histogram. The histogram is a bar chart of how many pixels sit at each brightness, dark on the left, bright on the right.
  3. Find the two small triangle sliders directly underneath the histogram, one at each end. Drag the left (black) slider right until it meets the point where the histogram data actually starts. Drag the right (white) slider left until it meets where the data ends. This alone usually fixes a flat, gray-looking photo.
  4. Now add contrast. Click once on the diagonal line about a quarter of the way up from the bottom and drag that point down slightly. Click again about three quarters of the way up and drag that point up slightly. You have made a gentle S. Darks got darker, lights got lighter.
  5. Keep the S gentle. If your photo starts looking like a poster with solid black patches and blown white patches, you went too far. Drag the points back toward the original line.
  6. Double-click the layer name in the Layers panel and rename it Exposure.
Check your work: Toggle the eyeball icon next to your Curves layer on and off. The corrected version should look like the photo somebody actually meant to take. If it looks worse, your S-curve is backward.
If you are on the 2026 build. Click the adjustment layer icon and look for Light in the list. If it is there, you can use it instead of Curves for this step. It gives you named sliders (Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks) rather than a graph, which some people find easier to reason about. It does the same job non-destructively. If you do not see Light in the list, this machine is on the older build, and Curves is your path. Curves is worth learning either way, because Step 9 needs it.
Step 3  ·  6 min  ·  core

Fix the Color

Most photos have a color cast, meaning the whole image leans slightly toward one color because of the light it was shot in. Overcast days go blue. Indoor bulbs go orange. You are neutralizing that now so your three moods start from the same honest place.

  1. Add another adjustment layer, this time Color Balance. Make sure it lands above your Curves layer.
  2. In the Properties panel there is a Tone dropdown set to Midtones, and three sliders: Cyan to Red, Magenta to Green, Yellow to Blue.
  3. Find something in your photo that should be a neutral gray or white. Concrete, a white plate, an overcast sky, a chrome bumper.
  4. Watch that thing while you nudge the sliders. If it looks too blue, pull the bottom slider toward Yellow. If it looks too orange, pull the top slider toward Cyan. Small moves, roughly 5 to 15 points.
  5. Switch the Tone dropdown to Shadows and then Highlights and check those too. Casts often live in only one of the three.
  6. Rename this layer Color.
Check your work: Your neutral thing actually looks neutral now. Do not chase perfection here, you have about two minutes for this and close enough is genuinely fine.
Optional Step 3b  ·  6 min  ·  if time allows

Remove a Distraction

Look at your photo and find one thing that does not belong. A trash can, a stray sign, a crumb on the plate, a person walking through the background. Do this now, before Step 4, so the fix carries through to all three panels.

  1. First, do it the manual way, because this is the version that works on every machine and gives you the most control.
  2. In the Layers panel, click your photo layer (the bottom one, not an adjustment layer). This step does change pixels, which is why it happens on a duplicate.
  3. Press Ctrl+J (Cmd+J) to duplicate the photo layer first. Rename the copy Cleanup. Now if you wreck it you still have the original underneath.
  4. Select the Lasso Tool (L) and draw a loose circle around the thing you want gone, including a little of the surrounding area.
  5. Go to Edit > Content-Aware Fill. A workspace opens showing a preview on the right. The green overlay marks what Photoshop is sampling from. Click OK.
  6. Press Ctrl+D (Cmd+D) to deselect.
  7. Now try it the fast way. Press Ctrl+Z to undo, then select the Remove Tool from the toolbar (shortcut J, it shares a slot with the Spot Healing Brush and Patch Tool). Set a brush size larger than the object and simply paint over it. Release. It fills in on its own.
  8. Compare the two results. The Remove Tool is usually faster and often cleaner. It is also less predictable, and on a busy background it sometimes invents something strange. Knowing the manual method means you are not stuck when it does.
Check your work: The distraction is gone and the area where it was does not have an obvious smeared patch. Zoom to 100% (Ctrl+1) and look closely, because problems here hide at small sizes.
Step 4  ·  5 min  ·  core · midpoint turn-in

Group, Save, and Submit Your Base

Stop here for a minute. What you have right now is a finished, corrected photograph, and it is worth turning in on its own.

  1. In the Layers panel, click your bottom photo layer, then hold Shift and click your top adjustment layer so everything is selected.
  2. Press Ctrl+G (Cmd+G) to group them. Name the group BASE.
  3. Go to File > Save As, choose Photoshop (*.PSD), and name it LastName_Base.psd. Save it somewhere you can find it again in four minutes.
  4. Go to File > Export > Export As. Set Format to JPG. For Quality, look at what the slider actually shows on your machine: if the top of the range is 7, choose 7. If it runs to 100, choose 80 to 90. Photoshop uses different scales in different export dialogs, so go by what is on screen rather than by a number in these instructions.
  5. Leave Convert to sRGB checked. That is what makes the file look the same in Canvas as it does on your screen right now.
  6. Save it as LastName_Corrected.jpg.
  7. Upload LastName_Corrected.jpg to Canvas right now. Do not wait until the end of class.
Check your work: You have two files: a PSD with a group called BASE, and a JPEG. Both exist on disk. The JPEG is uploaded.
Why you are submitting halfway through. Everything from here on is additive. If we run out of time, or Photoshop crashes, or you get pulled out of class, you have already turned in a complete piece of work. Nobody leaves today with nothing.
Step 5  ·  5 min  ·  core

Build the Three-Panel Canvas

New document. This one is wide, because it holds three vertical panels side by side.

  1. Go to File > New (Ctrl+N).
  2. Width 2400, and check that the dropdown beside it says Pixels, not Inches.
  3. Height 1200. Resolution 72. Color Mode RGB Color, 8 bit. Background Contents White.
  4. Click Create. Press Ctrl+0 to fit it on screen.
  5. Now set up guides so your panels land exactly where they should. Go to View > Guides > New Guide Layout.
  6. In the dialog, check Columns and set Number to 3 and Gutter to 0. Uncheck Rows if it is checked. Uncheck Margin. Click OK.
  7. Two vertical guide lines appear, splitting your canvas into three equal 800 pixel columns.
  8. Make sure View > Snap has a checkmark next to it. This makes layers stick to the guides when you drag them close.
  9. Save this as LastName_MoodSwing.psd.
Check your work: A wide white canvas with two vertical lines dividing it into thirds. If you see horizontal lines too, run New Guide Layout again with Rows unchecked.
Step 6  ·  6 min  ·  core

Place Your Photo Three Times

You are bringing in the corrected JPEG you exported in Step 4, not the original photo. All the correction work comes along with it.

  1. Go to File > Place Embedded and choose LastName_Corrected.jpg.
  2. It arrives with transform handles around it. Drag a corner handle until the photo is exactly as tall as the canvas. Because you cropped to 2 by 3, filling the height to 1200 makes it exactly 800 wide, which is exactly one column.
  3. Drag it into the left column. It should snap against the left edge and the first guide.
  4. Press Enter to commit. Rename the layer PANEL 1.
  5. Press Ctrl+J (Cmd+J) to duplicate it. Switch to the Move Tool (V), hold Shift, and drag the copy right until it snaps into the middle column. Holding Shift keeps it from drifting up or down. Rename it PANEL 2.
  6. Duplicate again and move that one to the right column. Rename it PANEL 3.
Check your work: Three identical photos filling the canvas edge to edge with no white gaps between them. Press Ctrl+H to hide the guides and look. Ctrl+H again brings them back.
If a gap or overlap appears. Zoom in on the seam. Snapping only engages when you get within a few pixels, so a slow careful drag works better than a fast one. You can also nudge a selected layer one pixel at a time with the arrow keys.
Step 7  ·  8 min  ·  core

Panel 1: Warm and Inviting

This is the lifestyle grade. Think of a coffee brand, a wedding photographer, a restaurant. Golden, soft, slightly faded, like the memory of a good afternoon.

  1. Click PANEL 1 in the Layers panel to select it.
  2. Add a Color Balance adjustment layer. It lands directly above PANEL 1.
  3. Immediately clip it. Right-click the new layer and choose Create Clipping Mask, or press Ctrl+Alt+G (Cmd+Option+G). A small bent arrow appears beside it. Without this, your warm grade spills across all three panels and the whole project falls apart.
  4. With Tone set to Midtones, push Red to about +15 and Yellow to about -15.
  5. Switch Tone to Highlights and push Red to about +8 and Yellow to about -8.
  6. Add a Vibrance adjustment layer on top and clip it the same way. Set Vibrance to about +25. Leave Saturation alone. Vibrance protects skin tones and already-saturated colors, Saturation does not.
  7. Add a Curves adjustment layer on top and clip it. Grab the bottom left point of the diagonal line and drag it straight up a small amount. Your blacks are now soft gray instead of true black. This is the faded film look, and it is most of what makes a grade read as warm rather than just orange.
  8. Select PANEL 1 and all three adjustment layers above it, press Ctrl+G, and name the group WARM.
Check your work: The left panel is noticeably golden. The middle and right panels are completely unchanged. If all three shifted, one of your adjustment layers is not clipped. Look for the bent arrow on every single one.
Step 8  ·  5 min  ·  core

Panel 2: Cool and Corporate

Same structure as Step 7, opposite direction. Think of a tech company, a bank, a hospital. Restrained, clean, blue, a little cold on purpose.

  1. Select PANEL 2. Add a Color Balance layer and clip it.
  2. Tone set to Shadows: push Blue to about +20.
  3. Tone set to Midtones: push Blue to about +10 and Cyan to about -5.
  4. Add a Vibrance layer and clip it. Set Vibrance to about -20 and Saturation to about -10. Pulling color out is what separates corporate from lifestyle more than the blue does.
  5. Add a Curves layer and clip it. Make a slightly stronger S-curve than you used in Step 2, and leave the black point where it is. Blacks stay black here.
  6. Select PANEL 2 and its three adjustments, group them, name the group COOL.
Check your work: Left panel golden, middle panel blue and muted, right panel still untouched.
Step 9  ·  5 min  ·  core

Panel 3: Editorial and High Contrast

Think of a magazine spread or a fashion campaign. Nearly colorless, hard contrast, expensive looking.

  1. Select PANEL 3. Add a Black & White adjustment layer and clip it. You used this exact adjustment in the album cover project.
  2. At the top of the Layers panel, drop the Opacity of the Black & White layer to about 85%. A trace of color bleeds back through. Fully gray reads as a mistake, nearly gray reads as a decision.
  3. Add a Curves layer on top and clip it. Build a strong S-curve this time, considerably more aggressive than Step 2.
  4. Then drag the bottom left point of the curve right along the bottom edge, a small amount. This crushes your blacks to solid. It is the opposite move from Step 7 and it is what makes this panel feel hard rather than soft.
  5. Select PANEL 3 and both adjustments, group them, name the group EDITORIAL.
Check your work: Three panels that read as three genuinely different treatments of the same picture. Stand back from your monitor and look at the whole canvas at once. If any two look similar, push the one in the middle further.
If you chose photo 06. The bright drip cake has almost no shadow area in it, so there is very little for a high contrast grade to grab onto. Your editorial panel will land softer than everyone else's, and that is the photo, not you. Push the Black & White opacity higher, closer to 95%, and lean on the contrast rather than the crushed blacks.
Step 10  ·  4 min  ·  core

Label the Panels

A three-up like this is a presentation piece, and presentation pieces get labeled. This is also the difference between something that looks like homework and something that looks like a deliverable.

  1. Select the Type Tool (T). Click near the bottom of the left panel.
  2. Type one short word or phrase: WARM, or LIFESTYLE, or whatever you want to call it.
  3. Highlight the text. In the options bar set the font to something plain and set the size small, roughly 24 pt. Set the color to white or black, whichever you can actually read against that panel.
  4. Open Window > Character and find the Tracking field (marked with VA and an arrow). Set it to around 200. Wide letter spacing on small all-caps type reads as deliberate and is a habit worth building.
  5. Press Esc to commit, then switch to the Move Tool and place it.
  6. Repeat for the other two panels. Put all three labels at the same height, and use the guides to keep the left margin consistent.
Check your work: Three labels, same size, same height, same distance from the left edge of their panel. Inconsistency here is the first thing a viewer notices.
Step 11  ·  4 min  ·  core · final turn-in

Save and Export

Two files again, same as Step 4.

  1. Ctrl+S to save your PSD. This keeps every layer and group editable.
  2. File > Export > Export As. Format JPG. Set Quality at the top of whatever scale your slider uses, same as you did in Step 4. Leave Convert to sRGB checked.
  3. Name it LastName_MoodSwing.jpg and save it.
  4. Upload the JPEG to Canvas. Submit the JPEG, not the PSD.
Check your work: You have now submitted two files today: LastName_Corrected.jpg from Step 4 and LastName_MoodSwing.jpg from this step.
Optional Step 12  ·  7 min  ·  if time allows

Spotlight Your Subject

Right now each grade is applied evenly across its whole panel. Real retouching is rarely even. Here you will brighten just the subject in one panel so it separates from its background.

  1. Pick whichever panel you like best. Click that panel's photo layer inside its group, not one of the adjustment layers.
  2. Select the Object Selection Tool from the toolbar. It shares a slot with the Quick Selection and Magic Wand tools, so click and hold to find it. Shortcut W.
  3. Hover over your subject. Photoshop highlights the shape it thinks you mean. Click once to select it. Add missed areas with Shift+drag, remove extras with Alt+drag (Option on Mac).
  4. With the selection active, add a Curves adjustment layer. Notice what happens: your selection automatically becomes the layer mask, so the adjustment only affects your subject. You did not have to make the mask yourself.
  5. Clip it to the panel below with Ctrl+Alt+G, then lift the middle of the curve slightly to brighten the subject.
  6. Now try the fast way. Undo back to before the selection, then look in the Properties panel with your photo layer selected and click Remove Background. Compare the edge quality against your manual selection, especially anywhere with hair, chrome, or fine detail.
  7. The 2026 build does this selection work on your computer instead of sending it to Adobe's servers, which is why it is faster than you probably expect.
Check your work: Your subject reads brighter than its surroundings, with no hard visible outline where the mask edge falls. If you can see the seam, your selection edge was too tight.
The point of doing it twice. The one-click version is usually the right tool in a real job. But it fails on hard subjects, and when it does, you need to already know how to do it by hand. Learn both, reach for the fast one, keep the slow one in your pocket.

What This Project Was Actually About

Three things, and none of them are the specific slider numbers.

Correct before you style. The exposure and color work in Steps 2 and 3 is unglamorous and it is the whole foundation. A stylish grade on an uncorrected photo just looks broken in a fancier way.

Non-destructive means reversible. Every change you made today is still sitting in your PSD as a separate layer you can reopen and argue with. That is what let you build three versions from one file instead of three.

Mood is a choice, not a property of the photo. The same picture sold three different feelings depending on what you did to it. Nothing about the subject changed. When a client says they want something to feel more premium, or friendlier, or more serious, this is the lever you are reaching for.

Instructor Note: Screenshots To Capture