Image Editing & Retouching Flashcards
7 cards from real ACE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Image Editing & Retouching flashcards as text
What is the key difference between Photoshop's Blur Gallery 'Tilt-Shift' effect and a standard Gaussian Blur?
Answer: Tilt-Shift preserves a horizontal band of focus and blurs above and below, simulating a shallow depth-of-field gradient
Tilt-Shift blur simulates lens tilt by keeping a defined horizontal in-focus band and applying gradual blur that increases toward the top and bottom edges.
Which technique should you use to retouch under-eye circles while preserving natural skin texture?
Answer: Use the Clone Stamp at a low opacity (20–30%) sampling nearby cheek skin
Cloning at low opacity from similar nearby skin allows gradual, texture-preserving brightening of dark under-eye areas without over-smoothing.
When using Content-Aware Scale, what does clicking the 'Protect Skin Tones' button (human figure icon) do?
Answer: Prevents pixels identified as skin tones from being scaled or distorted
The Protect Skin Tones button tells Content-Aware Scale to detect and protect skin-colored pixels from distortion while scaling non-subject areas.
What is the function of the 'Use Legacy' checkbox in the Curves adjustment dialog?
Answer: Reverts Curves to use the Photoshop CS3 clipping behavior and contrast algorithm
The 'Use Legacy' option in Curves restores the pre-CS4 contrast calculation method, which clips highlights and shadows more aggressively.
Which tool is best suited for retouching a subject's eyes to increase iris brightness and color saturation without affecting surrounding areas?
Answer: Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with a precise painted mask over the irises
A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with a mask painted precisely over the irises isolates the color and saturation enhancement to just the eyes.
In Photoshop, what is 'focus stacking' used for?
Answer: Combining images shot at different focus distances to achieve greater overall depth of field
Focus stacking merges several shots taken at different focal planes so that the combined image is sharp from foreground to background.
When applying the Patch tool in 'Content-Aware' mode, what does the 'Adaptation' drop-down control?
Answer: How strictly the fill texture matches the sampled source area
The Adaptation setting determines how tightly the Content-Aware Patch matches the texture and structure of the destination area, ranging from Very Strict to Very Loose.