How to lighten a photo in Photoshop: procedure, tips. How to easily lighten a photo in Photoshop in several cool ways
Good day to everyone, my dear friends and guests of my blog. Please tell me, has it ever happened to you that the photographs that you or someone you know turned out to be quite dark and not very watchable? Yes, such cases happen all the time. But thank God that all this can be fixed.
And our wonderful, famous graphic editor nicknamed Photoshop will help you and me with this). And by the way, what’s most interesting is that there are simply a great many ways to lighten a photo in Photoshop, so we’ll look at a few of the most optimal ones.
Well, for now, unpack your Photoshop and open the darkened image. I decided to take a photo of this dark alley.
Naturally, the first thing that came to my mind was to make the photo lighter using brightness and contrast. But in this article, if you don’t mind, I won’t talk about this method, as I talked about it in detail in the topic dedicated to this.
Light and shadow
Another way we will look at the so-called shadow and light effect. More precisely, this is not even an effect)
Blend Mode
Another very interesting technique is to use a blend mode. Let's take a closer look.
As you can see, for this photo I needed to duplicate the layers four times))). Well, nothing, but it became as bright as day.
Levels
A very popular type of image correction, with which you can give a photo a very interesting look. B since thanks to it you can shift the brightness levels of the image, this tool becomes simply irreplaceable in our case.
When you enter, you will see a small histogram of the input values. There are three points in total: Black (left), white (right) and gray (halftone in the middle). By moving one point or another, we change the levels of input values, and therefore change the brightness of the picture. OK. Quite a dry theory.
Curves
This correction tool is also very chic and I really love it. It can be used for powerful color correction. Well, it won’t be difficult for her to lighten the picture at all. In general, it might even be worth making a separate article about this. I'll see according to my mood. For now, let's make the picture lighter.
But of course, “Curves” and “Levels” can do much cooler things than simple lightening.
Well, now you know how to lighten a photo in Photoshop, and very easily and quickly. So now it won’t be difficult for you to make your photo much more pleasing to the eye.
And if you want to learn more about working with these functions, and also learn Photoshop from scratch from A to Z, then I strongly recommend that you study this powerful video course. No fluff, everything is straight to the point and told in human language. Moreover, I have it for my readers.
Well, if you liked my article, then you can subscribe to my blog updates to always be aware of everything new on the pages of my blog. And I will be glad to see you again on the pages of my blog. Good luck to you. Bye bye!
Best regards, Dmitry Kostin.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool), Dimmer (Born Tool) And Sponge Tool refer to shading tools, as they serve to lighten or darken individual areas of the image. The purpose of these tools is similar to those from the arsenal of traditional photography, with the help of which exposure errors are corrected. Using them, you can achieve lightening or darkening, and also influence the color saturation of individual parts of the image.
Working with these tools is both simple and complex at the same time. On the one hand, in order to brighten any area, you need to use the Lighten tool on this area accordingly. At the same time, it is important not to overexpose the dimmer, otherwise the image will be spoiled, so to speak, underexposed, or in the case of working with the Burn tool, overexposed.
Toolbar.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool), Dimmer (Born Tool) And Sponge Tool on the toolbar are combined into one group. In order to select the desired tool, you need to right-click on the tool icon and select the desired tool from the menu that opens. You can also activate the tool using a hotkey ABOUT(Latin).
Description of tools.
1. Tool Clarifier (Dodge Tool) designed to brighten individual areas of the image. The brightener is well suited for correcting photographs that have exposure defects. Its use gives good results, since the Brightener analyzes the entire set of image brightnesses and selects the most suitable correction option. In fact, the tool allows you to produce a local increase in brightness in the area to which it was applied.
2. Tool Dimmer (Born Tool) the effect is completely opposite to the Brightener and is intended to locally reduce the brightness in the area to which the tool was applied.
3. Tool Sponge Tool allows you to simultaneously change the saturation and contrast of an image with minimal effort.
Tool settings panel.
Tools Clarifier (Dodge Tool) And Dimmer (Born Tool) have similar settings. They have access to settings such as brush options, selection of tool areas, exposure options, and an airbrush selection button.
1 . Brush
2 . Range. This parameter is intended to set the tool mode. In mode Midtones dark and light pixels are processed with equal intensity. In mode Shadows Dark pixels of the image are processed more strongly. In mode Highlights Light pixels are processed more intensively.
3 . Exposure. This parameter determines the degree of influence of the tool on the selected area of the image. The higher the setting, the sharper and more noticeable the areas will be lightened and darkened. Changes from 0% to 100%.
It is very important to set the impact force correctly. Many people, when experimenting with Photoshop, try the Dodge and Burn tools at 100%. And by darkening the image, you get black “holes,” and by brightening it, you get complete overexposure. Of course, having received such a result, they no longer return to this tool. But the dodging and burning tools are subtle tools. If you are working on shadows or highlights, try a force of 7-10%, and if with neutral areas - 10-20%. For each case, the force of influence is selected separately, but after working a little with this tool, you will begin to feel what degree of influence is needed in each specific case.
4 . Airbrush. The last option allows you to enable or disable airbrush mode. When it is disabled, the tool acts like the Brush tool, that is, when the mouse cursor stops moving, the tool stops working, even if the mouse button is pressed. When you turn on the airbrush mode, the tool operates according to the principle of the Airbrush tool, that is, the tool has its effect as long as the left mouse button is pressed, regardless of whether the cursor is moving or not.
Tool settings panel Sponge Tool has the following form:
1 . Brush. This parameter determines the settings for the shape, size and hardness of the tool brush.
2 . Mode. This parameter allows you to switch between tool operating modes. When working with a tool Sponge Tool in mode Desaturate the saturation of the original colors of the image decreases, and when working in V mode increase saturation (Saturate)- increases.
3 . Pressure (Flow). The parameter is responsible for the force of influence of the tool. Changes from 0% to 100%.
4 . Airbrush. When the button is pressed, the tool starts working in spray mode.
So, we looked at three shading tools and got acquainted with their properties and settings. To summarize, it’s worth saying that toning tools are most suitable in cases where you need to make subtle corrections, depict shadows or enhance highlights. To improve the visual quality of graphical information, use these tools in small doses.
Photoshop offers a range of features focused on working with digital photography. When it comes to brightening (or darkening) a photo, there are a few different methods. The three simplest and most effective methods are given in this guide. Take a look at the sample photo we will use in this tutorial.
1. Using an Exposure adjustment layer
One of the most basic ways to brighten a photo is to use an Exposure adjustment layer. To do this, simply click on the icon shown below.
Translator's note : Right-click on “create a new adjustment layer or fill layer” and select “exposure”.
Adjusting the layer exposure produces 3 sliders: Exposure(Exposition), Offse(Shift) and Gamma correction(Gamma correction). Move the exposure slider to the right to brighten the photo.
Slider Offset(Shift) will affect the shadow area of the photo. Move the slider to the right to lighten the shadows. Gamma correction(Gamma correction) affects the midtones in the photo. Unlike the first two sliders, we move Gamma correction(Gamma Correction) slider to the left to lighten. Be careful with the Exposure adjustment layer, don't go overboard. With it you can make only small changes. Below is an example photo with the setup Exposure(Exposure) to 0.50 and Gamma correction(Gamma correction) to 1.15.
2. Using a Curves adjustment layer.
The next option is to use curves to lighten the photo. Using Curves may look a little intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love working with it. To add an adjustment layer, click the icon as shown below.
By using Curves You can selectively lighten the parts of the photo you want. The right edge of the curve affects the brightness of the photo, the left affects the shadows, and the middle affects the midtones. How you use a curve will depend on your photos and what you want to achieve in the end. A simple way to lighten is to raise the center of the RGB curve, thereby brightening the midtones.
It should look something like this
Another option for using a curve is to make the curve look like the one below, which will create a soft hazy effect.
Here is our result
3. Using a Levels adjustment layer
In addition to Exhibitions And Crooked we will consider the third option Levels(Levels), which is also good at working. To add a new Levels adjustment layer, click on the icon as shown below
On an adjustment layer Levels You can move the middle point to the left to brighten the midtones, or move the right point to the left to brighten the highlight area. But be careful not to overexpose the image.
You can also move the black Output Values slider to the right, which will give a slight hazy effect.
Here is an example photo after adjusting the levels.
Either of these methods will allow you to lighten dark photos with a certain degree of control and choice. Next time you want to brighten up dark photos, try these 3 methods and see which one works best for your photos.
The fastest way to convert a photo to black and white available in Photoshop is the “Desaturating” command, which can be found in the main menu tab Image --> Corrections (Image --> Adjustments):
And an even faster way to use this command is to simply press the key combination Shift+Ctrl+U. Regardless of which of these two methods you use, Photoshop will immediately remove all the color saturation in the photo, leaving us with a black and white version:
Using this command is, of course, simple and fast, but the problem is that this change is permanent. If we look at the Layers palette, we can see that our working photo is the background layer, and from the layer preview thumbnail we can see that our original image itself is currently in black and white:
Since we made changes directly to the original (i.e. original) image, if we now save and close our document, the photo will lose color forever. Even if you save the document in Photoshop format - a PSD file, there will still be no way to return the original color of the photo back. Of course, how we could avoid this problem is if we first created a copy of the background layer and applied the Desaturate command to the copy.
But luckily there is a better way that gives us a little more freedom to be creative.
Adjustment layer "Hue/Saturation" (Hue/Saturation)
In the final article in this series, we'll look at how we use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to create a professional black-and-white color variation in an image. Here we'll just see how we can use this adjustment layer to not only completely desaturate the colors, but also how to retain some hint of the original colors, which is a very interesting result.
To add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, click the appropriate icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Hue/Saturation from the list that appears:
If you are using Photoshop below CS4, then the layer controls will appear in the dialog box, if you are using a version of CS4 and higher (here I am using Russian-language CS6), then the controls will appear in the properties window.
To desaturate colors, simply drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left:
This gives us the same result we got with the Desaturate command:
So what's the difference between using the Desaturate command and dragging the Saturation slider? Well, let’s say, if we decide that we don’t want to make a completely black and white image, but want to leave a small amount of the original color in the photo, then this cannot be done with the “Desaturate” command, but with the help of the slider it is very simple!
Since we are using an adjustment layer, we are not making any permanent changes to the original photo (see the article Non-destructive photo editing with adjustment layers). To partially restore the original color, simply drag the Saturation slider a little back to the right. Watch the photo change in the document window to judge the results as you move the slider. The further you drag it to the right side, the more colors will be restored. Since we want just a hint of color back, I'm going to drag the slider to the right to about minus 90, which will return about 10% of the original color saturation:
Instead of going completely black and white, my photo in has muted, almost unnoticeable colors:
Since our black and white effect is contained in an adjustment layer, the original image remains unchanged.
If we suddenly need to restore the original full-color image, all we need to do is turn off the adjustment layer by clicking on the visibility icon (eyes), which you will find on the left side of the layer in the Layers palette:
Many photography enthusiasts have encountered a problem when, due to incorrect or insufficient lighting, or other factors, a photo with a wonderful angle and view turns out to be too dark. And it would seem that the photo is very good, but the dark area spoils everything. And the dilemma arises: how to lighten photos in Photoshop, clothes and fix the problem?
The first way to lighten a photo
First you need to create a duplicate of the original image layer using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J. Then in the top menu, select the “Image” tab and go to the “Correction” section. In the drop-down list we find the command “Levels...”. When you click on this button, you will see a graph, and in the Channel field you need to select “Red”. Then we move the slider on the horizontal line of the graph until the elevation begins. We perform the same actions with the blue and green channels. After completing all manipulations, click OK.
You can already see that the photo has become much lighter.
Afterwards, go back to the “Image” - “Correction” tab, but now select the “Exposure...” command. In the dialog box you will have three columns with sliders. The first “Exposure” is responsible for lightening - dark/light. The second “Shift” reduces or adds contrast, the third “Gamma Correction” also adjusts the lightening or darkening of the photo. You can move the sliders in different directions to make the best option for you. When you achieve the desired effect, click OK. The photo is ready!
The second option is image correction
One of the options for making a photo lighter in Photoshop is to use the Shadow/Highlights or Shadows/Highlights function. To use it, you need to create a duplicate layer using the Ctrl+J keys. Next, the newly created layer must be converted into a smart object. To do this, right-click on the top layer and select the “Convert to Smart Object” command. In the English version of the program, the command sounds like Convert to Smart-Object.
Transforming the layer must be done to change the adjustment settings at any time, that is, in this way you create the basis of an indestructible editing system. Now you can apply the Shadow/Highlight command to the transformed object. As a result, you will get a noticeably brightened image. If you wish, you can always change the lightening settings.
But situations arise when it is not possible to change a photo using one command. In this case, you need to duplicate the layer on which the smart object is located, then change the blend mode to Screen.
Now you can start adjusting the contrast, since after “forced” lightening the image is of dull, dim colors, for example, of clothes. And it can be done.
First you need to create a layer Levels. Layer settings are selected individually for each photo. Now you can correct the colors. Create another adjustment layer Vibration/Vibrance. Or, when using an older version of the program - Hue - Saturation. Settings are also determined individually according to the image “by eye”.
After applying the changes, you may notice that the image quality has noticeably improved and the colors have become more saturated. Finally, you can apply a Curves adjustment layer with the Multiplay blending mode. Set the photo to a small opacity setting, about 20–30%. Now you can compare the original image and the finished, corrected version and see how easy it is to lighten a photo in Photoshop.
The third way is to add rays of light
Sometimes, in order to lighten a photo, you don’t need to resort to various tricks, which often affect the quality of the image. You can get creative if you know how to make rays of light in Photoshop. This way you can lighten clothes, create a beautiful landscape, or add brightness and light to a wedding photo.
As with the other options, the first step is to make a duplicate of the original background. Then go to the “Filter” menu, select the “Blur” - “Radial Blur” command. In the window, select the “Linear” option, set the maximum intensity and use the mouse to move the center of the blur to where the light source should be, from which the rays will depart. Click "Ok". Then repeat the effect using the Ctrl+F keys.
Go back to the layers panel and change the blending mode of the top one to “Screen”. We return to the layers palette and apply a mask to the same layer. This is necessary in order to hide some of the rays so that they are not too obvious and do not completely cover the image. Then select “Gradient Fill” in the toolbar, select the standard option in its settings - from black to transparent white, apply the selected settings.
Now, while wearing a mask, draw a gradient across the image, erasing some of the rays. At the same time, at the top, make sure once again that the gradient type is selected “Linear”.
The next action is to right-click on the mask and select “Apply layer mask”. Afterwards you can blur the resulting rays a little. To do this, use the command “Filter” - “Blur” - “Gaussian Blur”. Set the “Blur unit” parameter to “Ok”. Then lower the transparency level in the layers panel to about 90%. Now use the Ctrl+E keys to merge both layers.
The rays of light are almost ready, let's return the image to sharpness. To do this, duplicate the layer, go to the menu “Filter” - “Sharpening” - “Smart Sharpening...”. Set the Effect “by eye” parameter, radius - 2 pixels, click OK.
So, sunlight in the form of rays is added. Your image sparkles with new colors.
