From the course: Photoshop 2021 Quick Start

Adjust brightness with a Levels adjustment layer - Photoshop Tutorial

From the course: Photoshop 2021 Quick Start

Start my 1-month free trial

Adjust brightness with a Levels adjustment layer

“

- [Narrator] As I mentioned in a previous movie, when you adjust the lightness lighter in the hue and saturation adjustment layer, you generally don't get the best results, since you lose a lot of the detail when you make the image too dark, or too bright. So, what should you do instead? Well, I like to use A levels adjustment layer to control the brightness of my adjustment. You can create one by going into the new adjustment layer icon and selecting levels. From the properties panel, you can adjust the brightness of this image by dragging B's control handles. Notice that when I make an adjustment, it affects the entire image. But, I only want to affect the couch. One solution will be to duplicate the mask from the layer below, onto the levels adjustment layer. But this is not the most efficient way to work, because if you need to adjust your mask, you will have to make the same adjustment on both layer masks. Instead, you can create a group, and only use one layer mask for all its contents. to do so, select the levels adjustment layer, then hold the shift key, and click on the hue and saturation adjustment layer to select both. With both layer selected, press Control G on windows, Command G on the Mac, to put those layers into a group. In Photoshop you can rename a layer or a group by double clicking on the level and typing in a new name. I'll call this group, color change. It's always a good idea to name your layers in groups to stay organized. You can click on the group "i" icon to disable the effects, and you can click on it again to bring them back. Click on this arrow to expand the group so that you can see the contents, the levels adjustment layer is still affecting the entire image, but you can fix that by selecting the layer mask from the hue and saturation adjustment layer, and simply dragging it over onto the group. Now all the layers that we put inside of this group, will have the same layer mask apply to it. In this case, I don't need the layer mask from the levels adjustment layer, so I'll right click on it and select delete layer mask. You don't need to do this but I wanted to keep the layers panel clutter-free, so that it's easier for you to see how this group works. Now that I have a layer mask on this group any adjustments that I make to the levels adjustment layer, will only apply to the couch. To adjust the brightness of the couch, you can use the Gamma Control, this lighter in the center. Notice that I can make the couch very dark or very bright, but I still keep the contrast in detail. And if you need to, you can use the remaining sliders to fine tune the image. In the next movie, I'll show you how all the sliders and the levels adjustment layer work.

Contents