1. The overall darkening can be easily achieved using the “Curves” tool.
The overall dark appearance of the photo usually occurs when the weather is bad and the lighting is poor (as shown in Figure 1). In situations like this, we only need to use Photoshop's "Curves" tool to brighten the overall photo. You can adjust the photo to a more ideal state. The specific method is as follows:
Open the picture, select "Image→Adjustment→Curve" or press the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+M" to bring up the curve tool window, and then click the mouse on the curve to adjust (as shown in Figure 2). During the adjustment process, use real-time preview to determine the best state and click OK to complete the adjustment of the photo. The final effect is shown in Figure 3. While the overall photo is brightened, no details are lost.
Application tips: The "Curves" tool is the most commonly used tool to adjust the brightness and contrast of photos, and is suitable for underexposed photos. While brightening the overall photo, we can also adjust the contrast of the photo to achieve better results. How to operate it specifically can be explored in daily practice.
Note: When adjusting the brightness, pay attention to the highlight part of the photo, so as not to lose the details of the highlight part, otherwise it will produce the effect of overexposure.
2. Ordinary backlit photos, quickly completed using the "Shadow/Highlight" tool
For ordinary backlit photos (as shown in Figure 4), we can quickly use the "Shadow/Highlight" tool to adjust the brightness of the dark parts of the photo without affecting the details of the bright parts.
The specific method is as follows:
Open the picture, select "Image→Adjustment→Shadow/Highlight", bring up the "Shadow/Highlight" tool window, and adjust the values of "Shadow" and "Highlight" respectively (as shown in Figure 5). After obtaining better results, Just click OK.
The final effect is shown in Figure 6.
