If you do very much at all with Photoshop Elements, you're sure to run into an advanced lighting tool called Levels. So let me introduce you to the basics of how Levels works. I'll use this photo called Teen Texting to demonstrate. You'll find it in your Part 6, lesson three practice folder.

When you have a photo that has lighting problems, it's worth trying the auto fix option. First, press Ctrl J in Windows or Command J on a Mac to duplicate the photo background layer. In the Menu Bar, choose Enhance, Auto Levels, or press Ctrl Shift l on Windows or Command Shift l on a Mac to quickly apply Auto Levels. And that does improve the photo. Here it is before. And here it is now. But I feel like his clothes are still too dark. So I'll press Ctrl Z in Windows or Command Z on a Mac to undo. And now let's try a manual fix using Levels which is the same tool used by the Auto Level shortcut, but you get to adjust the controls.

In the menu bar choose enhance, Adjust Lighting Levels. Notice a shortcut is Ctrl L in Windows or Command l on a Mac. When the Levels dialog box comes up, the part you'll use the most is the graph in the middle called a histogram. The left side of the histogram shows the dark pixels. The right side shows the light pixels and the middle part shows pixels in the mid tones. Most of the pixels in this image are in the mid tones range. It has a fair amount of dark pixels, but very few light pixels. With Levels the first thing you'll want to do is move the left and right sliders to the edge of the histogram. The dark tone slider on the left is already at the edge of the histogram. In fact, there's actually a lot of pure black pixels in this image. But the light tone slider is beyond the edge of the histogram. So click and drag the right slider to the left until it reaches the edge of the histogram. And that lightens the image. Now you can adjust the middle slider to get the lighting you want. Move it to the left to make the image lighter and move it to the right to make the image darker. I want to make the image a little lighter, so I'll move it to the left a little ways. I don't want to go too far, maybe right about there.

I've lost a bit of contrast by doing that. So I'll move the right slider to the left a wee bit more just to where the histogram begins to go up. And then I'll need to adjust the middle slider again by moving it slightly to the right. I'm just eyeballing this, every photo will be different. So there's no one way that works with every photo. When you're satisfied. Click OK. Here's how my image looked before and here's how it looks now.

So that's how to manually adjust the lighting in a photo using Levels. It never hurts to try the automatic Levels adjustment first by pressing Ctrl Shift l in Windows or Command Shift l on a Mac. But if that doesn't create the lighting effect you want press Ctrl Z in Windows or Command Z on a Mac to undo and work directly with the Levels dialog box.