Photoshop® CS4 Bible

Chapter 14. Lightening, Darkening, and Changing Contrast

IN THIS CHAPTER

Lightening

Darkening

Increasing contrast and detail

Decreasing contrast and detail

If you use Photoshop with much regularity, at some point you will need to lighten, darken, or change the contrast of an image. In fact, you will probably need to do some or all of those things to most of the images you work on.

The good news is that Photoshop provides many ways to perform these tasks; the bad news is that Photoshop provides many ways to perform these tasks. I know, just what you wanted to hear — more to learn. But variety is the spice of life, and I promise you'll be happy once you know these myriad techniques and gain the power to choose.

In addition to the many ways to create these effects, you can aply these effects to the overall image, to generally targeted areas of an image, to specifically targeted areas of an image, or to specific layers in an image. The effects can also be reduced or limited by changing their opacity or applying a blending mode. In many cases, the effects can also be changed by readjusting the settings that were initially used to create them.

When contrast is added, images seem to pop off the page and have more detail. You can decrease contrast in an image when you want to make it appear more muted or less noticeable and seem to contain less detail. Adding contrast usually involves lightening the lights and darkening the darks in some way. Reducing contrast often involves doing just the ...