Light and Contrast
Many photos we take lack good lighting and contrast, but that’s easy to fix in Photoshop Elements! We’ll look at two automatic fixes and one easy manual fix to brighten up a dingy photo.
Video 06-02: Light and Contrast (2:42)
Many photos we take lack good lighting and contrast, but that's easy to fix in Photoshop Elements. Here's a typical photo we might take with a smartphone or regular digital camera. It's a great shot but looks a bit dingy. Photoshop Elements has some automatic photo fixes in the Enhance menu. Let's try one out on this photo called 02-light-contrast.jpg, which you'll find in the Part 6, lesson two practice folder.
First, let's duplicate the background photo layer using the shortcut we learned in the last lesson, Ctrl J in Windows or Command J on a Mac. I'll press it three times to get three additional layers. Photoshop Elements will automatically give each layer a generic name. Click on the visibility icons of the top two layers to make them temporarily invisible, and click on layer one to make it the active layer. Now let's try some auto fix options in the Menu Bar. Choose Enhance, Auto Smart Fix. That applies an overall adjustment to the photo.
Let's try another option. Click on the layer above layer one to activate it and click on the Visibility icon to make it visible. This time I'll choose Enhance, Auto Levels. If I click on the Visibility icon to hide and reveal this layer, I can compare it to the Auto Smart Fix option. And in this case, I like Auto Levels the best. This is option I tend to choose most of the time. It mainly addresses the lighting issue in a photo.
Let's try one more option and that is to manually choose the effect you want. Click on the top layer and make it visible. In the Menu Bar choose Enhance, Auto Smart Tone. When the dialog box comes up, click on the dot and drag it toward the corner that has the effect you're after. Dragging to the left will make your image darker. Dragging to the right will make your image brighter. dragging up will give your photo less contrast, and dragging down will give it more contrast. When you reach this sweet spot where you have the right amount of light and contrast let go of the mouse and click OK.
Let's compare the manual fix with the Auto Levels fix. There's Auto Levels and there's the manual fix. Both photo fixes are good, so it all depends on the look you want.
So that's how to quickly enhance the lighting and contrast of your photos.