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Lighten Shadows in Photoshop
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PROBLEM SYNOPSIS |
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Problem At-a-Glance: | | No matter what I do, my scanned images always come in too dark, especially the areas in the shadows or dark images. How do I lighten these specific areas? |
Platform: | | Windows 2000 |
Application: | | Photoshop |
Conditions: | | Basic knowledge of Photoshop's editing tools |
Search Strings: | | image too dark, lighten image in photoshop, lighten shadows in Photoshop, pull out of shadows, lighten dark areas |
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IN THE DARK
Even though your photographs or illustrations may have come out just fine, the scanned in version doesn't always present the dark areas very well. This happens most often when there is a stark contrast between dark and light in the graphic. Sometimes random people will be thrust entirely in the black. Sometimes fine details will be hidden in the darkness. And yet the rest of the graphic will come out just fine.
In a nutshell: the original document is fine, but the areas of the scanned graphic is thrown in the darkness of a shadow too much. We don't want to brighten the entire graphic, but pull the specific area out of the darkness....well, after a bit of tooling around, here's a solution that works well for Photoshop users!
THE SOLUTION
- Start with your graphic. Below: UNTOUCHED/BEFORE A lovely photograph. It's actually fine as is, but we'll use it today for illustrative purposes.
- Use your Lasso Tool to select that area of the graphic that you would like to lighten. Advanced users: You may also use your Magic Wand Tool if the area is particularly dark, but you may have to refine the border with the Lasso Tool.
- Click on Select in the browser toolbar and head onto the Feather.
- When the Feather Selection window populates, set the Feather Radius between three (small selected area) and seven (large selected area). For this example, we used a setting of five.
- Copy the selection and paste it to a new layer.
- Now right click on this new layer (the one with the isolated dark area) and select Blending Options. Shortcut: Double click on the layer to go straight to Blending Options.
- When the Layer Style/Blending Options window populates, view the General Blending section of the window and set the Blend Mode to Screen.
- Optional step: Sometimes this trick works a bit too well, and the area comes out brighter than the rest of the image. If this happens, we recommend reducing the Opacity by using the lever in the Layers Box.
- Optional step: Sometimes you need to adjust the image for the extra oomph, an element that you can't put your finger on. We recommend you increase the brightness of the layer: Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. This optional step is often done in conjunction with the previous optional step (Step 8: Opacity).
- Voila! The shadows are not as dominant anymore! Below: ALTERED/AFTER Oh, so there's a door on the first floor! Who knew?
WHAT IS THIS SCREEN MODE?
Pulled straight from the impressive and exhaustive resource Screen Blend Mode: What It Is and Why You Need It by DigitalArtForm, The Open Notebooks of Joseph Francis: "Screening one image over another gives an effect that at first glance resembles a double exposure (an arithmetic addition of the digital data), but screening gives more subtle results that don't result in clipped, overexposed overly bright highlights."
Best way to illustrate this is that the Screen blend treats the layers like photograph slides being projected together. As with the scientific trick that red, blue, and green lights together results in white, screening the shadowed area atop itself creates a lighter image of that area, reducing the darkness.
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