Adjusting the Tone Curve

This section explains how to use the tone curve to fine-tune the tone and color of the image.

Procedure

In the job list, double-click the job.
The Job Settings window appears.
Click .
Click Edit Tone Curves.
The Tone Curves window appears.
Under Channel, select the color whose tone will be fine-tuned.
You can adjust all colors at the same time by selecting Apply to All Colors.
Edit the tone curve.
1. Click a certain point on the tone curve.
  A black dot (a control point) appears at the point you clicked. You can add multiple control points.
2. Use one of the following methods to adjust the shape of the tone curve by moving the control point:
- Drag the control point: Point to the control point, and then drag it when the pointer's shape changes to .
- Click the control point, and then enter the value in IN or OUT: The adjusted result is applied immediately to the layout area preview display.
IMPORTANT:
- If you adjusted the level in Level Adjustment, the level-adjusted curve appears in Tone Curves (as shown in the following diagram).
  1. Tone curve after level adjustment, 2. Control point, 3. Dragging a control point
- The tone curve's horizontal axis indicates the input value (before adjustment) and the tone curve's vertical axis indicates the output value (after adjustment).
- When there are multiple control points, control points other than the one being dragged are fixed in place. This makes it possible to select and adjust just a specific tone area.
- To initialize the tone curve, click Reset.
Click OK.
The Tone Curves window closes.
Click OK.
IMPORTANT:
- Generally, you only need to make minor adjustments to the tone curve when adjusting the tone and colors of an image.
- When you adjust the tone curve in the Queue Properties window, the same tone curve is applied to all the jobs added to the job list.
- Adjustments to the image tone and color by way of the tone curve work in addition to the adjustments made with Level Adjustment and enable more subtle adjustments.