How to Fix an Underexposed Photo in Photoshop

Tutorial Description

One of the worst feelings as a photographer is having to send an image to the recycle bin because you missed on exposure. Before saying goodbye to an image, try bringing it back to life with the power of Photoshop. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to brighten a dark photo, bring up shadows, restore lost details, and rescue the original color in an image. Follow along with the free sample image!

Fix an Underexposed Image in a Few Simple Steps

There are a couple key things to remember when you’re trying to repair an image that is underexposed. First, you generally don’t want to brighten the entire photo. When a picture is underexposed, the problem areas are generally in the shadows. We’ll show you how to target only the shadows in a photo with a Curves Adjustment Layer and Apply Image.

The second important tip is that underexposed areas will always be less saturated than the midtones and lighter areas. This means that if we’re bringing the shadows up in our picture, we want to be sure to raise the saturation to match. Using the same technique we used with out Curves Adjustment Layer, we’ll apply a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to the same areas that we lightened to bring the color back to life.

Step-by-Step Tutorial

Download the Sample Images

Open the Samples Images in Photoshop

First place the how_to_save_and_underexposed_photo.jpg into Photoshop by going to File and Open… or by dragging and dropping the files into the workspace.

Adding A Curves Adjustment Layer

Notice how the image appears a bit dark. To lighten the image, locate the bottom of the Layers window where there are a few different tabs to choose from. The half-filled in circle, which is located in the middle, represents the Adjustment Layer.

Select the small arrow below the Adjustment Layer and click on Curves….

The Curves window will appear which reveals the Histogram and a new layer called Curves 1 will appear at the top of the Layers Panel.

The Histogram displays if the image has more light or dark aspects in the image. The left side of the Histogram indicates the dark tones and the right side indicates the light tones. Notice how the graph shows more information on the left side of the Histogram.

Position the mouse in the central point of the Histogram and click and drag the mouse towards the top left corner of the Histogram. Notice how dark areas of the image gets brighter as the mouse is moved up.

Once the Histogram is adjusted, the Input should read 54 and the Output 171.

Notice how the shadows in the image have been brightened but the highlights have as well. The brighter the highlights, the less detail there will be in the image.

Sample Edit: Using The Brush Tool

Using Apply Image will only apply the Curves setting to the shadows and retain the highlights.

To apply this effect, create a New Layer, which is located at the bottom of the Layers Panel. The New Layer symbol is identifiable by the square with the folded corner, which is located right next the trash bin symbol.

Select the Brush Tool by hitting B on the keyboard or by selecting the brush symbol in the Tool Bar.

Click and move the mouse over the image to paint as desired.

Sample Edit: Using Apply Image…

Now, make another New Layer.

Locate the top of the workspace and click on Image and go down to Apply Image….

Once selected, Apply Image window should appear.

Next to Layer, select Merged.

By selecting this option, Photoshop will take all of the layers in the Layers Panel and merge them into one new layer.

The Channel should be set to RGB, Blending Mode to Normal, and Opacity to 100%.

Once these options are selected, hit OK.

Select the Move Tool by hitting V on the keyboard or by locating the Tool Bar, which is on the left side of the workspace. The Move Tool is the very first item in the Tool Bar and has four arrows pointing in different directions.

Hit CMD or CTRL + T on the keyboard to select the Transform Mode.

Position the mouse in the top corner and click and drag down.

Notice that the New Layer is now identical to the layers beneath it.

Notice how Photoshop merged all the visible layers into one layer.

Now delete all of the sample layers in the Layers Panel except the Curves 1 layer and the Background layer.

Applying Apply Image… To A Layer Mask

Not only can Apply Image… be applied to layers but to layer masks as well.

Double click on the Curves 1 layer mask in the Layers Panel, which is indicated by the white box next to the layer name.

Locate the top of the workspace and click on Image and go down to Apply Image….

Once selected, Apply Image window should appear.

Notice how Photoshop has taken everything visible and has made a snapshot of the image in the Curves 1 layer mask.

In the Apply Image tab, select and deselect the Preview box to view the before and after.

If the Curves adjustment is hidden from the shadows in the image but visible in the highlights, simply check the Invert box, which is located next to Channel.

By selecting Invert, Photoshop will reverse this process so it is visible in the shadows and not in the highlights.

Set the Channel to RGB, Blending Mode to Multiply, and Opacity to 100%.

Once all of the options are selected, click OK.

Viewing The Light And Dark Areas

Hold ALT or OPTN on the keyboard and click on the Curves 1 layer mask in the Layers Panel.

Now, an invert of the entire image will appear in the layer mask.

Notice how the image is converted into black and white. In a layer mask, the light areas of the image are visible and the dark areas are invisible. For this image the same rules apply. The Curves adjustment will be visible on the lighter areas, such as the face of the model, and invisible on the darker areas.

Select and deselect the eye next to the Curves 1 layer to view the changes.

To zoom closer to the image to view the preserved highlights, hit Z on the keyboard to select the Zoom Tool.

Simply click to zoom in and ALT or OPTN and click to zoom out.

Adjusting Saturation To +15

Notice how the shadow levels are now closer to the midtones and the saturations tones don’t match in the image.

To match the saturation tones in the image, locate the bottom of the Layers Panel, click on the Adjustment Layer symbol, and select Hue/Saturation or hit ALT or OPTN + U on the keyboard.

The Hue/Saturation window should appear with an array of different options to apply color to the selected layer.

In this case, locate the centralized slider in Saturation.

Adjust the slider to the right until +15.

Applying Saturation To Curves

Notice how the Saturation was applied to the entire image. In this case, the saturation should only be applied to the source of adjusted light in the image, which is the Curves layer.

To only apply the Saturation to the Curves 1 layer, select the Curves 1 layer and hold ALT or OPTN and click and drag the Curves layer mask to the Hue/Saturation mask.

Now, notice how both the Curves 1 and Hue/Saturation masks are identical.

Deselect and select the eye next to the Hue/Saturation layer to view a subtle change.

Adjusting Saturation To +18

Add more saturation by double clicking on the Layer Thumbnail between the eye and layer mask on the Hue/Saturation layer.

Move the Saturation slider to +18.

Try This Handy Photoshop Trick to Lighten Dark Spots in Your Photos

Sometimes, to get the lighting right in-camera, we’ve got to sacrifice some spots to darkness. High-dynamic range photography, known as HDR, composites multiple exposures to draw out hyper-realistic details and evens out the lighting range. That kind of effect is possible to achieve in Photoshop, too—and with more subtlety than most HDR. Here’s how to do it:

How to Bring Back Shadow Detail

In this tutorial by Phlearn, we’re shown how to isolate parts of an image and lighten them up without unbalancing the lighting curves of the entire image. It’s easy:

Create a duplicate layer. Click adjustments -> shadows/highlights. Click show more options. Leave the highlights at zero, and play with all the shadow options until you can see the details you want. Create a layer mask. Paint white over the details that need lightening, while the rest of the image remains as it was.

After a bit of practice, you’ll find it’s easy to gain an eye for balanced lighting and colors, and you’ll never again have to worry about imperfect lighting rigs or overdone HDR.

How to Quickly Fix Edge Halos in Photoshop

Have you ever noticed white lines or haloes along edges in your photographs? Perhaps you didn’t even notice before making an enlargement of it? These artifacts can be quite distracting and take a lot away from an image but the good news is that they’re relatively easy to get rid of in Adobe Photoshop.

Just because you find edge haloing when zooming in to the photo, doesn’t mean that it’s ruined. But do make sure that you go through the steps below before printing it, though; once it’s on print there’s little more you can do!

This article teaches you a quick and easy method to get fix edge halos in Photoshop. It will only take a few minutes of work to make the image appear a hundred times more professional.

Do you prefer to see this technique in video version? Then scroll down to the bottom of the article and see the step-by-step guide from the talented photographer and educator, Sean Bagshaw.

What Causes Edge Halos?

Before we look at how you can fix edge halos in Photoshop, let’s ask ourselves this important question: what causes edge halos and how can I avoid them?

Truth be told, there can be many reasons why they appear along edges in your images but most of the time it’s a result of post-processing. This can be due to overprocessing, trying to recover too much detail, or the consequence of applying a specific technique.

#1 Heavy Detail Recovery in RAW Processing

The first and most common, reason why you’re getting edge halos in your images is that you try to recover too many details in the RAW processing.

Do you normally reduce Highlights to -100 and increase Shadows to +100? Then that might be the reason.

It might not be very visible in the beginning but if you continue by applying Clarity, Contrast and other adjustments on top of this, it’s going to make the halos more dominant.

The solution to avoiding haloes in this situation is to capture a second exposure that’s brighter or darker and blend the two images together to create a greater dynamic range. Alternatively, you can double process the image and blending the two versions together in Photoshop.

#2 Poor Exposure Blending or Sky Replacement

If you’re more advanced in your post-processing, the answers are most likely found within your Photoshop workflow. More specifically, there’s an error in your Exposure Blending or Sky Replacement.

Exposure blending is a technique that can solve the issue of trying to recover too much detail, as explained above. However, it can be quite difficult to master. Even when you do master this technique, there’s no guarantee that you find yourself in tricky situations that eventually lead to edge haloing, no matter how good of a job you do in the field and in front of the computer

There are three main reasons where exposure blending leads to unwanted edge halos:

The mask doesn’t align correctly with the skyline

The exposures don’t align due to camera shift

Edges are overexposed in the brighter exposure, resulting in them not matching the actual skyline

The good news is that the two first mistakes can quickly be corrected.

For the first option, you’ll simply need to create a more accurate mask and for the second option you need to better align the two exposures (which is easily done by selecting both layers and going to Edit -> Auto-Align Layers…)

The third option, however, has no easy solution. That means you’ll have to deal with the edge halo by manually removing it in Photoshop.

How to Remove Edge Halos in Photoshop

If you’ve tried to resolve the haloing by following one of the steps above but it’s still there, it’s time to get dirty! Luckily, fixing edge halos in Photoshop tends to be a rather straight forward process.

Let’s take a quick look at the step-by-steps before going a little deeper into each one:

Zoom in to 100% Create a Merged Visible Layer Open the Clone Stamp Tool (S) Set Sample to Current Layer Set Mode to Darken Color Sample a color next to the halo you want to fill in Paint over the halo Resample when needed as you move along the edge

That’s it! Not that difficult, right? Follow these steps and you’ll quickly fix the edge halo in a matter of minutes.

Let’s take a little closer look, though, so you understand each step of the process:

Start by zooming in at least 100%. This gives you a much better view to work with and might reveal more haloes than what you first noticed.

You can choose to work directly on the background layer or a duplicate of it, if you haven’t yet made any adjustments above. if you have already made adjustments to the photo, simply create a Merge Visible Layer as the top layer.

Next, open the Clone Stamp Tool and set the Sample to Current Layer and Mode to Darken Color. This tells Photoshop to fill in the bright edge color with a darker color that you sample from next to the halo. As long as the darker color outside the edge isn’t darker than the dark color inside the edge, only the bright halo will be cloned.

Make sure that you’re soft brush that’s just a little larger than the halo itself. Using too small or too big of a brush might lead to other unwanted artifacts.

The final step is to hold option and option-click to sample a color next to the halo and paint along the edge. Make sure to resample to make the cloning smooth and natural. It’s especially important to resample when moving onto areas where the sky’s color or luminosity is changing.

Following the steps above has successfully removed the halos along this edge.

Toggle the layer’s visibility on and off to see how quickly you were able to fix the edge halo. Quite impressive, right?

Step-by-Step Video

If you’re struggling with edge halos in your images and want to try this technique, make sure to also have a look at this video by Sean Bagshaw, where he takes you through the steps explained above.