Adobe Photoshop : Simple Brighten, Contrast, and Warming Edits
Some of the most common edits that I make are brightening, contrast, and warming edits. For some reason my camera tends to photograph a little on the cool side of things so I warm them up to my taste in Photoshop. These edits are what I think are the simplest ways to do these edits, but by no means are they the only way to do this or the best way to do this. I myself have actions set up to make this go a lot faster, but I think it’s important to understand how to get there manually as well.
When I first started with Adobe Photoshop and at the same time photography, these are some of the first edits I figured out how to do. Since then, I found more powerful ways to do the same things, but understand that these are very powerful tools when you understand all the nuances and features of each of them. We will just be skimming the surface here.
Our goal with this tutorial is to brighten this image, increase the contrast, and then warm it up a bit to our taste. We are starting with a picture straight out of a Nikon D700.
1. Everything we will be doing will center around the layers box. Notice how the picture is a little too dark, not much contrast, and could use a little warmth.
2. You will need to create a second layer that is a duplicate of the background layer. There are two good ways to do this. You can drag your background layer onto the little paper icon pointed out in the picture below or you can go to the Layer drop down menu in the menu bar and select “Duplicate Layer” and select “OK” when the box pops up corresponding to that selection. Also, know that the little eyeballs next to each layer allow you to turn that layer off if you don’t want to use it. It’s also nice to use when you want to turn it on and off to see the changes you are making with that layer.
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