Lesson 2 Highlights, Midtones, Shadows

I am really liking this book because the directions are almost always easy to read, understand, and follow.
The first lesson with the Automatic Image Correction was interesting when we made 3 copies and applied the auto levels, auto contrast, auto color, and then cascaded them to see the difference-I was amazed at the cascade command (call me simple if you want to :) ) because it automatically lined all the windows up so we could see the contrast between the aforementioned commands.
I am looking forward to being able to know how to choose the commands without having to follow directions.
The histogram in conjunction with the Levels and its three input levels values list with the shadows, midtones, and highlights helped me understand the values of each. I will probably have to refer back to the book several times before I can automatically do this...you're right Patti with the steep learning curve in Photoshop...it is such a rich and diversified program and I am enjoying learning all about it even though it is an amazing amount of material to digest for me.
The curves command is quite interesting and we can really see how the values work in this command...and amazing how we can pick up the values in the curves window using the preset custom command and the eye dropper that allows us to choose the values of the highlights and shadows in the photo. Adding points to graph threw me off a little, but when I realized that I had to set the first point in the middle to anchor it before I made the other points on the curve custom graph it made it easier to manipulate.
The exercise I liked best in this lesson was the Compensating for Flash and Backlighting. I was amazed that these steps were relatively simple with dramatic results. Although, since we followed his easy to read instructions we got a result that showed the most change of a photo compared to all of the other lessons. I can not wait until I automatically know how far to adjust the numbers in the shadows values options and highlights option. The Tonal Width option controls the range of brightness values that PS regards as shadows or highlights and this control seems to the most difference, at least in my "beginner" status opinion.
Overall, I enjoyed this lesson-setting the points on the curve was the only thing that threw me off, otherwise this was very easy to follow-I just hope I can remember what each command does...