Video:Elements Tutorial: How to Brighten an Image
with Pelpina TripPhotoshop Elements can increase brightness with a few different methods. Even if a photo seems too dark to save, this About.com video can guide you through the steps in order to brighten an image.See Transcript
Transcript:Elements Tutorial: How to Brighten an Image
Hi, I’m Pelpina Trip, here for About.com. If you have an image in Photoshop Elements that’s just a bit too dark, you can make it brighter.
Adjusting Shadows and Highlights to Brighten an Image
In the guided edit mode, you’ll find the lighten and exposure menu, right here. Just select lighten or darken a photo, and you’ll see these sliders to change the shadows, the highlights, and the contrast of your image. Dragging to the left decreases the level, and dragging to the right increases it. This number at the right of the slider displays the value of the brightness or contrast.
When you change the shadows, you’re only impacting the darker parts of the image -- that’s very useful for what we’re trying to do right here.
When you change the highlights, you only impact the lighter parts of an image, so you can try to tone them down a bit for example. And the midtone affects only the medium-bright areas. So, just adjust these three sliders, play with it a bit, until you are happy with the result.
Auto Brighten Options in Photoshop Elements
Or, for a very quick fix, you can try the auto button, at the top right over here.
If you prefer to make the total image brighter, not just a part of it, which can be useful if your image is underexposed for example, just go back to the main menu, and pick brightness and contrast. Here, you can adjust the brightness of the entire image, like this, and you also have the option to change the contrast. And just like before, there’s a quick fix auto button at the top too.
Brightening Options in Quick Edit Mode
If you’re in the quick edit mode, instead of the guided edit mode, you can also make adjustments to the brightness of the image. In the lighting box, you can drag these sliders to change the shadows, the midtones and the highlights, right here.
There you go, some very simple ways to change the brightness of any image in Photoshop Elements. For more how-to videos on Elements, go to compute.about.com. Thanks for watching!