How to Adjust a Photo's Partial Brightness Using Photoshop

Sometimes you take a great digital photo, except for that one overly bright area, or excessively dark shadow. Luckily, you can use Adobe Photoshop to even out some of those trouble spots.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Computer
• Digital Photo

1. With your photo open in Photoshop, take a look at your photo. Do you have a section which is too light? if so, make a new layer (layer/new layer).

2. Select a medium gray foreground color.

3. Click on the paintbrush tool and choose a brush which is soft and an appropriate size for your bright spot.

4. 
    
   Once you paint over the area, change your blending mode

   Cover up the bright spot with gray paint on your new layer.

5. Change the blending mode on your layers palette from "normal" to "multiply." Your bright spot has been knocked down a few degrees!

6. Fine tune your work. Soften any edges by going to filter/blur/gaussian blur. Decrease the opacity of your layer if needed. Erase anything that got too shaded.

7. Repeat the process for overly dark colors. On a new layer, paint over any overly dark areas, but use white paint and soft light as a blending mode.

Tips & Warnings

• If your adjustment is not intense enough, duplicate the layer you painted on.
• Always paint on new, empty layers.
• Duplicate your file any time you decide to edit your photo.