A simplified value scale in contour fashion using Adobe Photoshop

I use Photoshop 7. Open image. Next go to Image>Adjust>Auto Levels. Do this to all images that you open - from a camera, from the scanner or from the web.

Now go to Image>Adjust>Posterize.

Chose the levels (basically the number of values) you want - experiment. Lower numbers mean less areas of value and will be higher contrast whereas high numbers will have less contrast.

Final Posterized image.