PhotoshopElements

Adjust shadows and brightness using Levels

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Choose Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels.

    • Choose Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Levels, or open an existing Levels adjustment layer.

  2. Choose RGB from the Channel menu. When set to RGB, your adjustment affects all three (red, green, and blue) channels. If you are working on a grayscale image, it will only have the gray channel.
  3. Set the shadow and highlight values by dragging the black and white Input Levels sliders (the left and right sliders directly under the histogram) to the edge of the first group of pixels on either end of the histogram. You can also enter values directly into the first and third Input Levels text boxes.

    Dragging the highlight slider to the left lightens the photo.

    Option-drag the Shadow slider to see which areas will be clipped to black (level 0). Option-drag the Highlight slider to see which areas will be clipped to white (level 255). Colored areas show clipping in individual channels.
  4. To adjust the brightness of the middle tones without affecting the shadow and highlight values, drag the gray Input Levels (middle) slider. You can also enter values directly in the middle Input Levels text box. (A value of 1.0 represents the current unadjusted midtone value.) Click OK.

    You can see the adjustment reflected in the Histogram palette.

    Note: You can click Auto to move the Highlight and Shadow sliders automatically to the brightest and darkest points in each channel. This is the same as using the Auto Levels command and may cause a color shift in your image.