How to Adjust the Light for Portrait Photography in Photoshop
Light balance and tone adjustments are a couple of the many post-processing options offered in Adobe Photoshop. Although we wish all of our photographs can be perfectly exposed with a correct white balance, this isn’t always possible, especially when shooting in an uncontrolled environment such as an outdoor area or any location with natural lighting. Post-production adjustment layers can alleviate some of the lighting and tonal imbalances, as well as fix some under- or overexposed images.
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Instructions
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Click “Layer,” click “New Adjustment Layer,” and then click “Levels.” A “Levels” adjustment panel will appear.
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Click and drag the left-hand slider to adjust the intensity level of the shadows in the image. Dragging the slider to the right will compress the shadow range so that more of the darker spots in the image will be intensified.
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Click and drag the middle slider to adjust the intensity level of the midtones. Drag the slider to the left to intensify the midtones to the shadow spectrum; drag the slider to the right to bring out the highlight spectrum.
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Click and drag the right-hand slider to adjust the image highlights.
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Click and drag the bottom “Output Levels” sliders to adjust the maximum and minimum output levels of the images. This will cut off tones in the shadow or highlight the spectrum, depending on the output levels you specify.
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Tips & Warnings
If your camera supports it, shoot in RAW mode. RAW files allow you to make post-production changes to exposure, levels and white balance without affecting the image quality.
Use adjustment layers rather than making adjustments to the image itself – adjustment layers can be hidden or deleted at any time, preserving the original image.
