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By learning how to darken an image in Photoshop, you can enhance your images with dramatic impact and depth. This article provides a step-by-step guide to help you improve your digital editing skills and master this valuable technique.
How To Adjust Brightness And Contrast In Photoshop For Stunning Images
To get started, launch Adobe Photoshop on your computer. Click File in the top menu bar, then select Open. Find the image you want to darken and click Open again. The image will now appear ready for editing.
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Click the half-filled circle at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will open the Adjustment Layers menu, which offers various options for adjusting the image.
In the Adjustment Layer menu, select Level. Allows you to adjust the tonal range and color balance of the image.
Alternatively, you can select Curves from the Adjustment Layers menu. Allows you to adjust the tone and color of the image by controlling the curve of the graphic.
Another option is to select “Brightness/Contrast” from the Adjustment Layers menu. Allows you to adjust the overall lightness or darkness of the image and the contrast between light and dark areas.
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Whichever adjustment layer you choose, it uses its settings to darken the image. Remember to adjust gradually so it doesn’t get too dark.
The burning tool darkens part of the image. Select it from the left toolbar, choose a brush size, and set the effect to a low ratio. Brush on the areas you want to darken.
Again in the Layers panel, click the Normal drop-down menu and choose a darker blending mode, such as Multiply or Overlay. This will merge your settings with the original image.
If the image looks too dark, reduce the opacity of the adjustment layer. In the Layers panel, drag the Opacity slider to the left until you are happy with the darkness.
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Check the image for areas that are too dark or inappropriate. Use the Dodge and Burn tools to lighten or darken these areas as needed. Finally, click “File” and then “Save” to save the dark image. A good picture involves many different things, most of which are subjective. In this article, I will briefly discuss one particular variable: image brightness. While I don’t want to get too technical, I want to show you how to adjust the brightness and final look of your photo using different methods in post-processing software. Although I used Lightroom, the methods and concepts should be the same no matter what software you use to edit your photos.
First, we need to know what the word light means. We all know what the concept of “light” means in our daily life. For example, when I say the sun is shining, you know exactly what I mean. This is not the same as “brightness” in photography. Changing the brightness of the image primarily affects the center of the image. Compare this to exposure, which affects highlights, midlines, and shadows equally, and you’ll see that adjusting the brightness of an image is very effective.
Let’s look at some examples. These are screenshots from Lightroom’s Develop module to show you what’s going on. Highlight the slider in the “Tone” submodule on the right. Here’s a picture I took directly from my wife’s camera while driving on Hwy 1 near Big Sur. You can see that the overall look looks pretty good, but the image looks a bit flat.
Adjust the Whites slider to see how it changes the image. Here you can see the difference between -100 and +100:
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You may have noticed that the overall picture has changed. As the white increases (+100), it greatly affects the sky and his skin, while the shade of the shirt remains the same. If the white balance is low (-100), the image will look very flat
Do the same with the black slider. You can see how the image changes by moving the slider between +100 and -100:
This time we get the opposite effect when we adjust the whites. As the black level increases (+100) the image appears flat, and as the black level decreases (-100) it becomes more contrasty.
You can see that when you adjust the exposure, it affects everything. Highlight and shadow levels (in the image, not the controls) increase or decrease depending on whether the level is increased or decreased.
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Now that you understand how adjusting the black and white sliders affects the image, let’s see how we can adjust the brightness of the image while editing.
Here is a picture that is a bit blurry. You may notice that the volume slider is slightly adjusted. By default, when I import an image, I make some adjustments to make the image pop a bit. Let’s take this as a starting point and see what we need to do to improve this image.
Note the numbers below the histograms in each image below for brightness and overall image exposure. These provide precise RGB (Red Blue Green) percentages for certain areas of the image (you can select it by moving the cursor anywhere on the image). This first picture shows the values marked “R 65.8 G 64.6 B 49.2%”. When adjusting the brightness of each image, my goal was to get as high an “R” value as possible. Although you can’t see the cursor, I put it in the same position for every screenshot (the yellow part closest to the factory camera).
If we expose the image correctly, let’s see what happens when we increase the exposure. Now things look even better! My target value is 88.3 R. The picture is still inaccurate in my eyes. The shadows are not dark enough and the image looks a bit blurry.
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Let’s see how exposure and white settings affect just the image. Here you can see that my target value is R 88.4, the yellow parts of the plant look the same, but the rest of the image has changed significantly. It has a very dark feel to me and has a lot of contrast.
Now let’s combine exposure and white/black level adjustment and see what happens. The target value of the image is 87.8 R. The brighter parts of the image look better, while the shadows remain darker. The whole picture has a contrast that I find more attractive than the first two pictures.
You may have noticed that even though I adjusted the exposure and white/black levels, those were the only adjustments to the image and I didn’t need to adjust anything else at the time.
What about the last example? Here’s a shot from a recent wedding with slightly better dynamic range and a better launch effect than the plant example above. Without going into too much detail, here’s a look at the two different final edits I did… one with just the white/black slider and one with the white/black slider and exposure combined:
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The two pictures are very similar. It’s amazing how the same correction can be done with two completely different methods. For my wedding photos, I like the slightly lower contrast look of the second image (w/b + exposure). If it’s a popular image format, choose a slightly higher contrast.
I hope you find this interesting and useful. Understanding that there are many ways to affect the brightness of an image opens up post-processing possibilities that you haven’t explored before. Every image is different and you should experiment with different types of images before you get a feel for which method works best for a given situation.
John Bosley is a Denver-based wedding photographer who loves creating authentic and emotional images with his clients. There is a soft spot for functional antibodies. You might be writing with a fountain pen in your collection or posing with one of the film bodies. You can see his work on his website or follow what he’s been up to on Instagram. Product links are affiliate links. If we buy one of these, we get some money. Need more information? See how it works here.
Learning how to adjust lighting in Photoshop can take your photos from duller to dazzling. this