Rescue a flat, dark photo with Levels and Curves
An indoor photo that came out dark and hazy gets hazier if you only raise brightness. Levels pushes the darks darker and the lights lighter; Curves bends the midtones.
Steps
- Open Image > Adjustments > Levels. Under the histogram (the brightness graph) there are three triangles.
- Drag the black triangle on the left to where the graph begins. The darks deepen.
- Drag the white triangle on the right to where the graph ends. The lights come back.
- Set overall brightness with the grey triangle in the middle. Auto places all three for you, and you can fine-tune from there.
- If the photo leans yellow or blue, switch the channel from RGB to Red, Green or Blue and adjust each.
- For more, open Image > Adjustments > Curves and lift the middle of the diagonal a little to brighten midtones. An S shape adds contrast.
Worth knowing
Add the adjustment as an adjustment layer from the bottom of the Layers panel and the original stays untouched, so you can change the values later. Hold Alt and the Cancel button becomes Reset.
Questions
Can I just press Auto?
Auto clips a little off the dark and light ends by rule. It usually helps, but a photo with a lot of bright sky can blow out, so pull the triangles back a bit by hand.
What is the difference between Levels and Brightness/Contrast?
Brightness/Contrast moves everything at once. Levels sets shadows, midtones and highlights separately, which works far better on hazy photos.