How To Edit In Photoshop To See Through Dark Pictures Without Using Brightness/Contrast

by Cecile Cinco

Many times when we take pictures through digital cameras, there are takes that are too dark you can’t appreciate what’s in the picture. It happens especially when the camera is merely a part of your mobile phone, which is my case.

When taking pictures, I always use the highest resolution possible so I can get quality takes especially when I resize the pictures down to fit my purpose. My cam is only 2 mega pixels but it’s just the right resolution for web use. Anything higher is considered heavy.

Since most of my takes are also spontaneous and candid, there is no Take 2. I would just take multiple shots and that’s just what I have. My last resort would be to edit using Photoshop. (By the way, I learned this from my husband, who is really the heavy user of Photoshop and other graphic apps since he’s the graphic/layout artist in a quality printing press company.)

I just want to share the tip with you so you can adjust your photos before uploading.

Ok, first step: open your picture in Photoshop; adjust size if you want. Below is my original dark picture.

Step 2: Go Image –> Adjustments –> Levels (or Ctrl-L; I’m using XP but probably Mac-L for Mac users)

And the window below will appear. Notice the red circle? That little triangle is what you will be dragging with your mouse to the left to make your picture brighter, and to the right if you want it darker.

So I adusted to make it look like below:

And here is the result of my edited picture:

Overall the picture was bad. But it became better when adjusted.

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