Using control points in Paint by Zaweba

Brightening one face in a group photo, warming a single building or calming a too-bright patch of sky usually means a selection and a mask. Control points do it differently. You click on the thing you want to change, move a few sliders, and the adjustment spreads to nearby areas of similar colour while leaving everything else alone.

In Paint by Zaweba you will find them at Filter > Photographic > Control Points. They work on 8 and 16-bit images.

Placing and moving points

The control points window shows a preview of the picture. Click on it to add a point, and each point gets a number so you can tell them apart. Drag a point to move it to a slightly different spot or colour. Alt+click a point to remove it. The mouse wheel changes the point's size, which sets how far its influence reaches.

Each point has its own sliders for brightness, contrast, saturation and warmth. What makes it clever is the limit: the change is applied only to colours like the one under the point. Put a point on a blue sky and raise its brightness, and the sky brightens while a red roof inside the same circle stays as it was, because its colour is nothing like the sky's.

Jobs it does well

Faces in mixed light. Drop a point on a shadowed cheek, raise the brightness a little and add warmth. Skin of a similar tone nearby follows; the dark jumper next to it does not.

Skies. A point on the brightest part of the sky with brightness down and saturation up restores colour without darkening the tops of trees and buildings the way a graduated filter would.

Product shots. A point on a coloured product can lift its saturation while the white background around it stays clean.

Distracting areas. A point on a bright patch in the background, with brightness and contrast lowered, pushes it back so the eye stays on the subject.

Getting the most from them

Use several small points rather than one huge one. A big point covers more of the picture and has more chance of catching other areas of a similar colour. A few modest points, each placed carefully, give much more precise control.

Put points on the most typical colour of what you want to change, not on a highlight or a shadow within it. A point on the bright reflection on a car bonnet will mostly affect other bright reflections.

Use a point with no change to steady an area. With a neutral point on a face sitting next to a sky point, the face has a point of its own that holds it where it was.

Keep moves modest. Several gentle adjustments look more natural than one strong one, and they hold up better when you make a print.

When to use something else

Control points shine when the area you want to change has a distinct colour. When it shares its colour with things you want to leave alone, a selection is cleaner: one of the selection tools, a mask, and an adjustment layer. For RAW files, the RAW Developer in Paint by Zaweba has its own local adjustments with brush, linear and radial masks that work on the original data, which may suit the job better at the start of an edit.

Because control points apply as a filter, consider running them on a duplicate layer if you want to keep the original safe. That way the untouched picture stays underneath and you can lower the opacity or paint the effect out with a mask. It is a quick way to make small, precise changes without drawing a single selection.