Brightening Dark Photos in Photoshop

A photograph that is too dark is often able to be fixed in Photoshop. A histogram is a diagram of all the tones that are present in an image. Usually with dark or underexposed photographs, most of the information will be to the left of the histogram diagram or graph. Open up your Histograms Window by clicking menu item Window - Histogram. On a well exposed photo, the histogram will be spread over the whole range from dark to bright. Open up your Info Palette and move your mouse point over your photo. You will see the color values of each point as you pass over it in the Info Dialog Box.

Brightness/Contrast Tool

Most Photoshop users would use the Brightness/Contrast Tool to correct underexposed photos. So let us try it out and see what happens. Go to menu item Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast and the Brightness and Contrast window will pop up. It will not do the best job on photos. It will brighten everything equally, and it will flatten the image out as well. So Cancel that and do not use the Brightness/Contrast Tool at all.

Levels Tool

You can also use the Levels Tool to lighten a photograph in Photoshop. Go to menu item Image - Adjustments - Levels and you will see a histogram diagram or graph and some sliders under neath it. The black triangle slider is at 0 RGB and the White or Bright is at 255 RGB. The gray mid point represents neutral gray or fifty percent gray. If we drag the right hand slider to the left hand side a bit then we will even out the whole image. If it is a dark image, fixing the photo using the Levels Tool will introduce banding into the printing process. So the Levels Tool is also not the best tool for fixing dark images or underexposed photographs in Photoshop.

Photoshop Curves Tool

The best tool to use is the Curves Tool for fixing underexposed photographs in Photoshop. Hit the Control + M keys or go to menu item Image - Adjustments - Curves. The bottom left hand side of the graph is black and the top of the line is white. You can click on any point of the diagonal line and drag it up or down to brighten or darken that tonal range. Click on the curve to create an anchor point and move the lighten the dark areas. You can also choos a color channel such as Red or Green to adjust for any colour excesses that are evident in your photo.

PHOTOSHOP VIDEO Tutorial - Brighten Under-exposed Images
This video tutorial is a demonstration of how even the darkest of photographs can be brightened, showing you how to work with the Curves Tool in Photoshop to achieve the best and most printable result.