Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Using Levels

People who've used Elements for a while will tell you that the Levels command is one of the program's most essential tools. You can fix an amazing array of problems simply by adjusting the level of each color channel. (On your monitor, each color you see is composed of red, green, and blue. In Elements, you can make very precise adjustments to your images by adjusting these color channels separately.)

Just as its name suggests, Levels adjusts the amount, or level, of each color within an image. You can make several different adjustments by using Levels, from generally brightening your colors to fixing a color cast (Removing Unwanted Color has more about color casts). Many digital photo enthusiasts treat almost every picture they take to a dose of Levels, because there's no better way to polish up the color in a photo.

The way Levels works is fairly complex. Start by thinking of the possible ranges of brightness in any photo on a scale from 0 (black) to 255 (white). Some photos may have pixels in them that fall at both those extremes, but most photos don't. Even the ones that do may not have the full range of brightness in each individual color channel. Most of the time, you'll find some empty space at one or both ends of the scale.

When you use Levels, you tell Elements to consider the range of colors available in your photo as the total tonal range it has to work with. Elements redistributes your colors accordingly. Basically, you just get rid of the empty space at the ...