ACE Image Adjustments and Retouching 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which Photoshop tool is best suited for removing small blemishes by sampling texture from surrounding pixels?
- Clone Stamp Tool
- Healing Brush Tool (Correct answer)
- Patch Tool
- Content-Aware Fill
Correct answer: Healing Brush Tool
The Healing Brush Tool samples texture from a source area and blends it with the color and luminosity of the target area.
Question 2: What does the 'Protect Tones' option do in the Dodge and Burn tools?
- Prevents clipping of highlights and shadows (Correct answer)
- Locks the tonal range to midtones only
- Applies a luminosity blend mode automatically
- Reduces noise in the adjusted area
Correct answer: Prevents clipping of highlights and shadows
Protect Tones minimizes clipping in highlights and shadows while keeping colors from shifting when dodging or burning.
Question 3: When using a Curves adjustment layer, what does clicking directly on the image with the on-canvas picker do?
- Samples a color to set the white point
- Places a control point on the curve at the sampled tonal value (Correct answer)
- Applies an auto correction to the image
- Creates a new layer based on the sampled tone
Correct answer: Places a control point on the curve at the sampled tonal value
Clicking the image with the on-canvas picker in Curves adds a control point corresponding to the sampled pixel's luminosity value.
Question 4: Which adjustment is most effective for correcting a color cast in only the shadow areas of an image?
- Hue/Saturation
- Color Balance (Shadows) (Correct answer)
- Selective Color
- Photo Filter
Correct answer: Color Balance (Shadows)
Color Balance lets you target Shadows, Midtones, or Highlights independently, making it ideal for isolating a shadow color cast.
Question 5: In Camera Raw, what does the 'Masking' slider in the Detail panel do?
- Restricts noise reduction to shadow areas
- Limits sharpening to high-contrast edges (Correct answer)
- Applies sharpening only to the luminance channel
- Blends sharpening with the original at a set opacity
Correct answer: Limits sharpening to high-contrast edges
Holding Alt/Option while dragging the Masking slider shows which areas receive sharpening; increasing it confines sharpening to edge detail.
Question 6: What is the primary advantage of using Smart Filters versus regular filters for retouching?
- Smart Filters render faster on large files
- Smart Filters are non-destructive and can be re-edited at any time (Correct answer)
- Smart Filters automatically create adjustment layers
- Smart Filters support 32-bit color depth
Correct answer: Smart Filters are non-destructive and can be re-edited at any time
Smart Filters are applied to Smart Objects, keeping the original data intact and allowing filter settings to be modified later.
Question 7: Which blending mode is most commonly used when applying a Curves or Levels adjustment to affect only luminosity without shifting colors?
- Multiply
- Luminosity (Correct answer)
- Overlay
- Soft Light
Correct answer: Luminosity
Setting an adjustment layer's blend mode to Luminosity applies tonal changes without altering the hue or saturation of the underlying image.
