Levels Adjustment Layer Example

I have mentioned previously that underexposed photos can be brightened up to a point and beyond that point the picture will soon become quite grainy. Here is a way to regulate the brightness of your image while maintaining control of the grain.
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Color Cast Fix

Fixing color cast problems was addressed in a previous blog using Picasa at http://fotofixin.blogspot.com/2009/06/fixing-color-cast.html. This blog will demonstrate editing color cast issues using Photoshop Elements.


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Correcting Flash Exposure Problems

This picture suffers from what is called "flash dropoff." Objects around the area illuminated with flash are definitely darker the farther they are away from the center of the flash exposure. There are ways to correct images of this type but only to a point.

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Levels Adjustment Layer - Part 3

This is the third part of a three part tutorial on using Photoshop Element's Levels Adjustment Layer tool. We will cover three methods with this tool for saving this picture from the trash.

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Levels Adjustment Layer - Part 2

As I said in a previous blog, a digital photo is made up of millions of little colored squares called pixels. Each pixel's color is comprised of a mixture of red, green and blue. One can adjust the image's look as in the last blog by using the composite or RGB histogram. Still another way to make image adjustments is by editing the histogram of each individual color. In the following video we will be editing the red, green and blue channel histograms. Sounds complicated but it really is not!

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Levels Adjustment Layer - Part 1

This will be an introduction to adjustment layers. The "Levels" adjustment tool is my favorite tool for several reasons, which I will get into in the accompanying video tutorial.

I sincerely hope that you will practice these techniques on some of the different photos in my blog. Simply right-click on any image and in the pop up menu, left-click on "Save Picture As" and then pick a place on your computer to save the image. Even better yet, practice on your own photos. Always remember to work on a copy of your photo and not the original.


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The Histogram

When you take a picture with your digital camera, you are creating an image made up of millions of little colored squares called picture elements or pixels. The color of each pixel is made up of a mixture of red, green and blue. You can see the amount of each color and of the mixture itself in a graph called a histogram.

This tutorial is a brief explanation of the histogram. The histogram gives one useful information as you quickly can tell if your photo is too dark or too light or is lacking in contrast. Of course, your eye can tell you that but the histogram will give you insights about what you can do to improve your photographic results.

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Blending Mode for Low Contrast Photos

There is another blending mode that is very well suited for enhancing the contrast in a photo. Actually, there are two blending modes - the "Overlay" and the "Soft Light" modes.

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Blending Mode Fix for Underexposed Photos

This blog is similar to the last one except this time I will be talking about underexposed images . The blending mode to use to fix defects of this type is the "Screen" mode.

Underexposed images also can be adjusted in Picasa using the "Fill Light" adjustment tool.

The lovely lady in the photo does a wonderful impersonation of Patsy Cline in her "Patsy Cline Tribute Show." I can assure you that if you are lucky enough to see her perform live, you will think you are listening to the real Patsy Cline.

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Adjusting an Overexposed Photo using Blending Modes

Some over-exposed photos need overall adjustment and the "Multiply" mode is teriffic for handling situations like this. When you duplicate your layer, as described in the previous blog, and apply the Multiply" blending mode, you may find that you have over-corrected the image. However, there is an easy fix to that where you can use the "Opacity" setting in the layers panel.

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Multiply Blend Mode for Overexposed Photos

There are a number of methods for correcting over-exposed photos. This is one of the simplest methods and one I hope you will like and use in the future.

Below is an excerpt from http://www.northlite.net/ps/blend.htm. This site has an excellent list of definitions of blending modes with examples of same. Below is the definition from this site of the "Multiply" blending mode. Remember during the video tutorial that white becomes transparent. If I apply a multiply mode to a layer, I can then paint on the blending layer with white to remove darkened areas of my image. This is similar to using a layer mask to selectively edit an image but I will save talking about layer masks for a later blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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