PS Secrets

This tutorial will show you how to fix your dark photos with Photoshop Elements. And it's amazingly fast.

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STEP 1
Open an image that is underexposed.

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STEP 2
Duplicate the Background layer by dragging it onto the Create a new layer icon at the top of the Layers palette or just press Control-J (Mac: Command-J) on the keyboard. At the top of the Layers palette click in the field that says Normal. The field will expand allowing you to see all the blend modes available. Slide down the list to Screen and release the mouse button. You will notice your photo is already lighter. But it might still be too dark like mine is.

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STEP 3
Now just keep adding layers until it gets to the point where you like it. Each new layer will be a little lighter than the last one.

To quickly add the new layers make sure you start on the screened layer (Layer 1) and then keep pressing Control-J (Mac: Command-J) on the keyboard. Every time you do you'll add a new, lighter layer.

You can see from the image below it took 5 additional layers until it got to the point where I was happy with it.

You can actually purposely go one layer too far, to the point where your photo looks too light. Then just use the Opacity slider in the top-right of the Layers palette to bring down the opacity until it looks just right. Note I did not do that in my example.

That's all there is to it. Take a look at the before and after below to see the dramatic improvement we made in just a couple of minutes!

That wraps up this Photoshop Elements tutorial on how to fix underexposed photos. See more Photoshop Elements tutorials by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Until next time,
Rick

http://www.essential-photoshop-elements.com/underexposed-photos.html