Brightness / Contrast

The “Brightness / Contrast” I think, is the simplest way to adjust the brightness of an image.  All you have to do is click on the “Image” in the menu bar, choose “Adjustments” in the drop-down menu, and click on “Brightness / Contrast”.

This shows the dialog “Brightness / Contrast” that has two sliders to adjust brightness and contrast (1).

This can be done by placing the mouse pointer over the slider and clickging and dragging it when the cursor changes into a hand (2).

If you prefer to type in the values, no problem, place the cursor in the textbox and type (3).

A second way of adjusting the brightness and contrast, is by making use of an adjustment layer. I will tell you more about the adjustment layer in a later section of this course, but I still like to show it to you.

An adjustment layer is a layer that you add to your photo where you want to make the change.  This is nothing new, we had already allocated a button (4) “Layer” in the bottom pane in the previous versions of Photoshop.

What is new is the panel “Adjustments”.

To add an adjustments layer, the first thing you do, open the “Layers” (1) panel and then the “Adjustments” panel (2).

Just click the “Window” in the menu bar and select “Layers” and “Adjustments” in the drop-down menu.

In the top panel “Adjustments” (2), we find 15 different icons (3) with 15 different commands for adjustment layers.

We say this many times, but when the mouse pointer over an icon, its name will appear.

What we need is the command “Brightness / Contrast”, this is the first icon.

When we click on it, an adjustment layer is added (1) to the “Layers” panel.  An adjustment layer consists of two parts, which are shown by two icons.

The left part (icon) represents the adjustment, the right part (icon) a mask.

We do not need the “Mask Part” for what I want to show (more on masks in a later lesson). So you can drag this part to the trash (2) in the bottom right of “Layers” panel.

In the dialog that appears, click the “Delete” button.

What we still have to discuss is the adjustment layer with only one icon (3).

When the adjustment layer is selected, you can adjust the brightness and contrast (4) in the “Adjustments” panel.

This is different from earlier versions of Photoshop, where a dialog is opened for each change.

The advantage of using an adjustment layer for color corrections, is that you can amend or delete this this adjustment at any time, and especially these changes are not applied to the picture but to a layer above.  If you have made changes, you should be able to save the picture in a format that supports layers, such as PSD or TIFF. But more about this when I talk about “layers”.

To return to the list of various adjustments, click on the right pointing arrow in the menu bar of the “Adjustments” pane (5), or select the underlying layer, the “Background Layer”.
But more about layers, adjustment layers and masks in subsequent lessons, we’ll get a little further with “Color Corrections”.

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