There are several ways to improve the contrast of midtones in an image, but most of the standard methods give little control over which tones are still affected and which tones are not. The following method does give you that control and is very easy to do. Add a Curves adjustment layer and give the curve an ‘S’-shape to improve the contrast. Usually this will improve the midtones very nicely, but you will also start to loose shadow detail and/or highlight detail if you need a moderate to strong correction. Here’s how you get those details back. Double-click next to the adjustment layer icon in the layers palette. That will bring up the Layer Styles dialog. At the bottom of the dialog, you’ll see two ‘Blend if’ sliders. To get back the detail in the shadows, move the left slider of ‘Underlying Layer’ to the right. This will stop the adjustment layer from working on any pixel with a luminosity value lower than where the slider is placed. In order to make this effect not so abrupt, draw on the right side of the slider while holding the Alt-key. The slider will split in two halves, the area between the two halves become a transition zone so that the effect is smooth. Do the same with the right slider if you need to recover highlight detail.

Improve midtone contrast in Photoshop; before image

Improve midtone contrast in Photoshop

Improve midtone contrast in Photoshop; after imageAfter

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