How to lighten or darken photographs

This is probably one of the most common procedures you will do. Often times when you take photos with your camera’s Automatic mode, the images might come out too dark or too bright.  Thanks to digital photography it’s pretty easy to learn how to lighten dark photos in Photoshop. The easiest way to adjust for dark and light is to use the tool. LEVELS.

You can find this in photoshop in 2 places.
1. Top bar: image/adjustments/levels
2. Bottom right under layers, Find the tools at the bottom of that heading, then find the circle in the middle with light and dark divide.
Under this circle are lots of options.  Click on LEVELS, you will see a little mountain, called a histogram. This is the distribution of light to dark. There are little arrow and sliders under the mountain. The ones we will be using are the arrows on the right (lighter) and left (darker). By just sliding these arrow toward the middle you will change the light and dark of your photo. To have a properly adjusted photo you want the foot of the mountain to go all the way to the left and right. If you move your slider into the actual black part of the mountain it can distort your balance. Sometimes this is ok especially if you have a bright white sky. Experiment with this see what you like.

In fact I suggest you pay with all the headings everywhere. Just play with them to see what they do.
A very fun place to play is on the top bar under filters. These options will make some pretty amazing things happen to your photo. Photoshop is like a big toy. Play.