Lighten and darken areas
Learn how to lighten and darken image areas and perform other local edits using the Adjustment brush in Adobe Camera Raw.
Published
Welcome everyone.
In this video, I'll show you how to adjust local areas of your photo using the Adjustment Brush and Camera Raw here inside of Photoshop.
In this photo, we'll brighten the side of the truck and also make the logo stand out more.
I'm first going to convert the photo layer here in the Layers panel to a smart object by right clicking or control clicking with a one-button mouse on the name of the layer, not the photo thumbnail.
I'll choose Convert to Smart Object.
You'll see in a while that doing this first gives me the most flexibility when working with the Camera Raw Filter.
Next, I'll go to Filter and choose Camera Raw Filter.
In Camera Raw, I'll click on the Adjustment Brush icon.
So that we have a common starting point, let's set the flow and the density to 100 and turn off Auto Mask.
Now the Adjustment Brush allows me to paint areas that I want to affect with one or a combination of any of these settings.
I'm going to brighten the truck, so I'll choose positive Exposure.
As I slide the slider, nothing happens in the photo because I'm saying what, but I haven't yet said where.
Therefore, I'll just guess on my exposure setting.
I can change my brush size with the slider here at the bottom.
Notice that my brush has two circles.
The inner circle is fully affected, and the area from the inner to the outer circle is feathering, or how soft the edge is.
This amount is controlled by the Feather slider.
Now I'll click an drag to paint the truck.
Once I start painting, I can see my exposure change.
So I can come back over to the Exposure slider and adjust the amount to taste.
I can turn on the mask here with a check box or with a shortcut Y to clearly see where I've painted.
I can change the color of the mask by clicking on this color square.
I've missed a little bit of the truck here.
And I've also accidentally painted the sky.
I'll come over and click on Erase, and then I'll click and drag to erase the sky from my mask.
Now I'll click back on Add to finish up the truck, and I'll turn off my mask.
I think in addition to positive exposure, I'll also add to this same adjustment a little bit of shadow brightening.
Next, I want to emphasize the logo by painting it with Clarity.
This will be a new instruction, different settings, so I'll click on New.
I'll reset Exposure and Shadows by double clicking on the triangles so that I don't paint with these settings.
I'll choose just positive Clarity.
When I paint around the logo, you'll see that Clarity really pops it out.
Notice that I now have two pins.
These are records of my adjustment.
The green and black mean that the logo adjustment is active, and as long as it is, I can adjust my Settings, continue painting, or hit the Delete key to delete this adjustment.
To modify the truck adjustment I did first, I need to click on the pin to activate it.
Now to see before and after of my work, I'll click on the slider icon here at the bottom.
This shows before, and if I click on it again, is shows after.
So you can see that I've drawn more attention to the side of the truck and the logo with my work.
Note that the adjustment I was working on last is no longer active after toggling before and after.
So to continue working on it, I would just click on the pin.
And we just mentioned that Overlay will hide or show you adjustment pins.
So if you've lost them, do check this box.
I'll click on Okay to complete my work.
And here in the Layers panel, you'll see that because I converted my photo layer to a smart object first, the Camera Raw Filter shows up as a Smart Filter applied to it.
This allows me to turn my work on and off with the eye icon or to delete my work by dragging the filter to the trash.
But even more impressively, I can double click on the Filter to get right back into Camera Raw where I can click on the Adjustment Brush again at any time to undo or modify my work.
I think I'll click on the truck adjustment and reduce the exposure setting just a little bit more.
Then I'll hit Okay again to go back to Photoshop.
So you've seen that we have this very powerful local tool within Camera Raw and that with the smart object workflow, all of my work is nondestructive.
I hope you've enjoyed this lesson on the Adjustment Brush, and I encourage you to watch the other tutorials.
[LAURA SHOE DIGITAL TRAINING, www.laurashoe.com]
Adobe Stock Contributor
