Among those who have managed, there is an opinion that those who are good at their craft do not necessarily need to know how to process photographs in Photoshop. They say that this is the prerogative of those who, through editing, try to hide the flaws of the photograph itself. But, in fact, there is nothing wrong with embellishing a photo a little. For example, there is a need to make the image a little lighter. What to do in this case?
If you want to slightly adjust your (or someone else’s) photo by adding brightness to it, but don’t know how to do it, don’t worry. Making a picture brighter is actually no more difficult than How? Carefully follow the instructions below, and you will definitely succeed.

You will need:

Opening the photo

Of course, first we need to open the image itself. To do this, you can either use the familiar “File”, “Open” menu, or simply press the key combination Ctrl+O. Select the desired photo and click the “Open” button.

Create an adjustment layer

This can be done using the layers menu. There we look for the corresponding pictogram (black and white circle). Click on it, and from the list of available commands, select the one we need - “Channel mixing”.

The window that opens may seem very complicated and incomprehensible at first glance. In fact, this is not the case at all, and if you understand it a little, then everything falls into place. If you don’t want to delve into all the technical aspects, then just follow these steps: in the field called “Central channel”, select one in turn and set the slider on it to 150%. The other two channels, in turn, are underestimated by 25%. See, it's very simple. We repeat this procedure for each of the colors.

For those who still haven’t figured out how to take a bright photo using this method, we recommend looking at the screenshot and setting similar parameters for yourself.

Save the image

So, there is a difference. The image has become more saturated and bright, which is noticeable even to the naked eye. The last thing we can do is save the changes. To do this, you can press the key combination Ctrl+S: in this case, the original file will be replaced with the edited one. If you need the modified photo to be saved as a separate file, then open the “File” menu and select “Save”.

If you are a beginner photographer and want to become popular, you can

The main problem with unprofessional photographs is insufficient or excessive lighting. This leads to various disadvantages: unnecessary haze, dull colors, loss of detail in shadows and (or) highlights.

If you get a picture like this, don’t despair – Photoshop will help improve it slightly. Why "slightly"? But because excessive enhancement can ruin the photo.

To work, we will need a problem photo.

As you can see, there are disadvantages: there is haze, dull colors, and low contrast and clarity.
This image needs to be opened in the program and a copy of the layer called "Background". Let's use hotkeys for this. CTRL+J.

Dehaze

First you need to remove unwanted haze from the photo. This will slightly increase the contrast and color saturation.

The haze in the photo has disappeared. Create a copy (fingerprint) of all layers using the keys CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E, and move on to enhancing the detail.

Increased detail

Our photo has blurry contours, especially noticeable on the shiny parts of the car.

1. Create a copy of the top layer ( CTRL+J) and go to the menu "Filter". We need a filter "Colour contrast" from section "Other".

   

2. We adjust the filter so that small details of the car and background become visible, but not the color. When we finish setting, press OK.

   

3. Because there is a limit to how much radius can be reduced, you may not be able to completely remove colors from the filter layer. To be sure, this layer can be made colorless using the keys CTRL+SHIFT+U.

   

4. Change the blending mode for the Color Contrast layer to "Overlap", on either "Bright light" depending on how sharp the shot we need.

   

5. Create another merged copy of the layers ( CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E).

   

6. You should know that when sharpening increases, not only the “useful” parts of the image will become sharp, but also the “harmful” noise. To avoid this, let's delete them. Go to the menu "Filter - Noise" and move on to point "Reduce Noise".

   

7. When setting up a filter, the main thing is not to go too far. Fine image details should not disappear along with noise.

   

8. Create a copy of the layer from which noise has been removed and apply the filter again "Colour contrast". This time we set the radius so that the colors become visible.

   

9. There is no need to desaturate this layer, change the blending mode to "Chroma" and adjust the opacity.

   

Color correction

1. Being on the topmost layer, create an adjustment layer "Curves".

2. Click on the eyedropper (see screenshot) and, by clicking on the black color in the image, determine the black point.

3. We also determine the white point.

Result:

4. Lighten the entire image a little by placing a point on the black curve (RGB) and dragging it to the left.

We can finish here, the task has been completed. The picture became much brighter and clearer. If desired, it can be tinted to give it more atmosphere and completeness.

From this tutorial we learned how to remove haze from a photo, how to sharpen it, and how to straighten colors by setting the black and white points.

In this lesson you learn to make colors brighter and more saturated.

In fact, there are plenty of ways to do this. In today's lesson we will look at only one - using adjustment layer Mixing channels. It's also a quick way to improve photos that didn't turn out well because of poor lighting or insufficient equipment.

Let's get to work!

Step 1

Open an image whose colors seem insufficiently bright and saturated to you. Make sure that the photo is in , otherwise further work will be impossible. To do this, go to the menu in Image - Correction and check the box next to RGB.

I’ll take as an example a photograph taken on my recent trip to the sea:

Step 2

To enhance the color we will use adjustment layer Channel mixing. To do this, go to the menu Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Channel Mixer.

Step 3

In the settings palette that appears, select red channel (Red) and increase the red channel to 150%. To balance it out, reduce blue and green by 25%. Thus, the red channel settings should be as follows:

Step 4

We will do the same with the remaining two channels.

Let's move on to the settings green channel (Green). Set the following values: Red -25%; Green 150%; Blue -25%. Here's what it looks like:

Step 5

And finally, the settings for blue channel (Blue) look like this: Red -25%; Green -25%; Blue 155%. Let's look:

Step 6 That's it!

You can close Channel Mixing. Please note that the photo has become brighter and more saturated than before. But it seems to me that the orange color of the dress is too bright and unnatural. In such cases, you can lower the opacity of the adjustment layer. I'll reduce it to 40%. Now let's see what happened.

You will need

• - a computer with the ability to connect a camera to it
• - Microsoft Office Picture Manager program from the Microsoft Office software package
• Optionally:
• - Paint.NET program or any other graphic editor

Instructions

Transfer the required photo using any method known and accessible to you/ picture into your computer and save it anywhere on your hard drive.
To increase the brightness of the picture, use one of the two methods below.

Method One. You will need the Microsoft Office Picture Manager from the Microsoft Office software package.
1. Open the desired picture in this program. This can be done by right-clicking on the file and selecting “Open with...”.
Tip: If Microsoft Office Picture Manager is the default program for viewing graphic files, you can simply double-click the picture to open it in the desired program.
2. Find the “Change Picture” icon on the toolbar or select the menu item Picture – Brightness and Contrast…
The settings area will open on the right.
3. Use the “Select brightness” button to let the program select the optimal settings. If the result does not suit you, you can cancel the action using the appropriate button.
Adjust the brightness of the picture, bringing it to the optimal level, in your opinion, using five different sliders. The Microsoft Office Picture Manager program allows you to both increase/decrease the brightness and contrast of the picture as a whole, and adjust these parameters separately for light or dark parts of the picture.

Method Two. You will need any graphics editor. For example, the free program Paint.NET, the capabilities of which are quite wide.
1. Open the desired picture in this program. This can be done by selecting “Open...” from the “File” menu in the program, or simply dragging the file from the folder into the program with the mouse.
2. You can edit the overall brightness of the picture using this program in several ways. Select one of the following items from the “Adjustments” menu:
- Brightness/Contrast. Here you can increase the overall brightness of the picture.
- Hue/Saturation. The "Brightness" item in this submenu makes picture lighter overall.
- Auto levels. Perhaps the program will be able to improve your picture, and you will be satisfied with the result.
- Curves. This menu section is intended for more experienced users and allows you to make significant adjustments to the lighting/shading of a picture or photograph. You can try to figure out the settings yourself.
Tip: You can apply several of the above points at the same time to achieve the desired effect.

Sources:

• Adjusting the brightness, contrast and sharpness of the picture

Often, even those photographs that you consider successful lack saturation. This is especially noticeable when printing - because the LCD monitor shows the image brighter than paint and paper can do. This is a common problem, but it can be completely corrected with the help of Photoshop or another similar graphic editor.

You will need

• - Graphic editor Adobe Photoshop
• - Photo for correction

Instructions

Open the photo in the Adobe Photoshop graphic editor using the “File - Open” menu, or the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut. Crop the photo if necessary.

Often photos lack contrast in the first place. Sometimes this is not immediately clear: at first glance, the photo looks normal. But once you open the “Levels” dialog box, the true state of affairs becomes clear. This window is called up by the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L, or through the menu “Image – Adjustments – Levels”.

Pay attention to the , which you see in the dialog box. Free spaces between its edges and the edges of the dialog box are a sign of insufficient contrast in the photo. Move the black and white markers closer to the middle, observing how the photo changes. As you can see, the photo has become more contrasting and saturated. But don't overdo it, make sure the colors remain natural.

Today I will tell you how to make a photo lighter in Photoshop: I will write step-by-step instructions and attach screenshots to it to make it easier for you to understand the principle of operation.

We will work with a photo editor such as Adobe Photoshop CS6. You can use other versions of this program. The procedure will be approximately the same.

So, to achieve the desired result, we don’t even have to use the toolbar.

Step 1: Open an image. You can do this in three ways:

First: click the “File” button and select “Open” (For quick actions, use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + O).

After which you will see a window in which you need to specify the path to the file.

Second way: Left-click once on the picture and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C, then open the program and use Ctrl+V to add the image to the editor.

Method three: Click on the photo with the left mouse button and, without releasing the button, move the image into the Photoshop window. After that, it will be added to the editor software environment.

The first method is the simplest. Click on the “Image” button, then “Correction”, and then “Brightness/Contrast”.

Press the "Brightness/Contrast" button

You will see a window called “Brightness/Contrast”. You can easily make a photo lighter or, on the contrary, darker. In our case, the photo needs to be brightened. To do this, move the pointer on the “Brightness” straight line to the right until the result of the photo satisfies you.

For the opposite effect, you need to move the same pointer to the left.

This is far from the only method to make a picture lighter.

Second way more complex, but thanks to it, you can more accurately configure the required parameter. We perform the following procedure: click the “Image” button, then “Correction”, and then “Levels...” (Open using the Ctrl+L key combination).

Click the "Levels" button

Three pointers and three value fields have opened in front of you, all of which can be used to balance the lighting of the photo. Experiment with them and you will quickly understand how they work.

"Levels" in Photoshop

Increase the brightness in the "Levels" window

Method number 3 is similar to the second:

Click the "Curves" button

The "Curves" window opens

The line that appears can be moved in all directions, but to make the photo lighter, move it to the left. Ready!

Adding brightness thanks to "Curves"

How to make a photo lighter in Photoshop?

The last method will help us answer this question. It is called a rather popular word in the field of photography - “Exposure”. The operating principle is as follows: click the “Image” button, “Correction”, then the same “Exposure”.