Rescue images with ugly shadows using a tool called Shadows Highlights.

Here's a photo that's typical of many photos taken in full sunlight. They have dark shadows that detract from the photo. So let me show you how to minimize the shadows. I'll use this photo called swiming-girl.jpg, which you'll find in the Part 6, lesson five practice folder.

Press Ctrl J in Windows or Command J on a Mac, to duplicate the photo layer. In the Menu Bar, choose Enhance, Adjust Lighting, Shadows Highlights. When the dialog box comes up, move the Light and Shadow slider to the right until the darkest tones are lighter. I could go all the way to the right but then her hair begins to look a bit faded. So I'll move this back a bit to around 75. You'll rarely need to darken highlights or change mid tone contrast. Click OK to commit the change.

To see the difference made by Shadows Highlights click on the Visibility icon of the top layer and then make it visible again. It's a lot better but there are a couple of things we can do to enhance his photo even more.

When using shadows highlights, you may need to adjust the color. This photo is now to red so I'll need to de-saturate it slightly. In the Menu Bar choose Enhance, Adjust Color, Adjust Hue Saturation. When the dialog box comes up, move the Saturation slider to the left or right depending on what your image needs until it looks good to you. I'll move mine to the left to around -20 or so and click OK.

The final thing I want to do is check Levels. Click on the Adjustment Layer icon and choose Levels. Bring the right and left sliders to the edge of the histogram if needed, and I'll need to move this left one to the right a little bit. Then adjust the mid tone slider if needed. I'll move mine slightly to the left to lighten the image a wee bit more. Let's bring it up to about there and then double click on the tab of the Levels Adjustment panel to collapse it.

If any part of the photo is too light, you can use the layer mask to hide part of the Levels adjustment. I think her hair got just a little too light so I want to mask away the Levels effect on her hair. Make sure the mask thumbnail is the active thumbnail by clicking on it. Get the Brush tool and open Tool Options. You'll want a soft brush at around 50% opacity is good, and the Mode should be Normal. Make sure the foreground color chip is black. Why black? Because black conceals the effect of the mask. If necessary click on the curved double arrow icon to switch color chips. Brush over any area that would look better without the Levels adjustment. I'll brush over her hair. And then I can also brush over her swimsuit a little bit to bring back some of that nice color and down here to a little bit. So that looks good to me.

To see the before and after image, press Alt in Windows or Option on a Mac and click on the Visibility icon on the Background layer. Here's how my photo looked when I started. It's hard to even see anything but those terrible shadows. But now that we've used Shadows Highlights, Hue Saturation, and a Levels Adjustment Layer we have a terrific photo!