How to apply an adjustment, make edits, then delete the adjustment (but keep the edits)?

Question

I've got a photo that was shot at a crooked angle which I tried correcting using the Straighten tool in CS5 Extended but the straightened version crops out far too much of the image for my liking.  So I manually rotated and cropped the photo so that it's straight and still includes what I want it to but of course I was left with large white spaces on all four corners of the photo.  After a lot of work I was able to fill in all the white spaces manually using the clone stamp and it looks fine the way it is now on my monitor but when the image is lightened even slightly many obvious cloning flaws begin to show and I'm afraid that people with monitors that display the image lighter will be able to see the obvious cloning work I did.
So what I'd like to do is apply a layer or mask or filter that uses the Shadows/Highlights feature to lighten the image enough to expose everything and then use that lightened over-exposed version to make the necessary fixes with the clone stamp tool and fix all the flaws that show when the image is lighter -- then, after having fixed the cloning flaws, I'd like to get rid of the Shadows/Highlights layer/mask/filter so that the photo goes back to its original exposure, except this time with the flaws fixed.  I'm still fairly new to CS5 and I haven't found a way to do this yet.  So far every time I apply Shadows/Highlights using a layer or filter I either can't do the cloning work on the lightened image or I can but then it won't let me get rid of the Shadows/Highlights after the cloning work is done.
Is there any way around this?
Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

Try using the new Edit - Fill - Content Aware feature to fill corners exposed by the rotation.  Select first, taking a few pixels of the image as well in the selection, then try the fill.  You may need to touch things up a bit after, but I'm betting it will get you there more quickly than with manual cloning.
I tried this but unfortunately kept getting the error: "Could not fill because there's not enough data to fill it in a Content-Aware manner."
My solution is a custom bright color profile that I toggle with Ctrl + Y which is a shortcut for Color Proofing.
Here's how to do it.
Edit > Color Settings (Shift + Ctrl + K). In the Working Spaces section, using the RGB menu, scroll up and choose Custom RGB...
For the name type myBrightRGB , change the Gamma to 0.75, and press OK
From the same RGB menu, scroll up and choose Save RGB...  and save the profile in this location C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color
Click the Cancel button in the Color Settings
With an image open, go to View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB, then View > Proof Setup > Custom...  and from Device to Simulate menu choose myBrightRGB profile and press OK.
From now on toggle the Color Proof with Ctrl + Y to edit your image in the prefered color space.
This is also a perfect solution for checking how images will look on overbright miscalibrated displays.
Sounds like a great solution, however after following all those steps I'm not seeing an option for "myBrightRGB" anywhere in the drop down menu next to Device to Simulate.  I tried restarting Photoshop, still not there.  I did notice that in the C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color folder that "myBrightRGB.csf" was the only csf file in there -- all the rest of the files in that folder are ICC files.  Not sure if that makes a difference as far as this is concerned.  When I go to View > Proof Setup > Custom, the Customize Proof Condition window has an option to "Load..." and I tried selecting the myBrightRGB file that way but it'll only load .PSF files.  Is there something I'm missing?