Editor › Features › Adjustment Layers
Does PhotoAIA have non-destructive adjustment layers?
Yes — fifteen of them. Adjustments can be applied as layers that never alter the pixels beneath them, and an active selection becomes the new layer’s mask in a single step so the correction is confined to that area.
The non-destructive adjustment layers
- Tone: Levels, Curves, Brightness/Contrast, Exposure.
- Colour: Hue/Saturation, Colour Balance, Selective Colour, Channel Mixer, Vibrance, Photo Filter, Replace Colour.
- Conversion and stylising: Black & White, Gradient Map, Posterize, Threshold.
Destructive one-shot corrections (not adjustment layers)
Shadows/Highlights, Match Colour, Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Colour and Equalize apply once and bake into the pixels rather than sitting as a re-editable layer. Shadows/Highlights is also available as a Smart Filter on a Smart Object; the others apply directly to the pixels.
Selective Colour is plate-accurate
Selective Colour operates on real CMYK plate values via the working-space conversion, with both relative and absolute modes — which is what makes it useful for correcting a specific ink rather than nudging an approximation.
Limitation
Adjustment layers cannot be written into a PSD as adjustment layers. Their effect is baked into the flattened composite, and PSD export reports this before writing.