- Set the Red, Green, and Blue values to 2 to define the darkest black with some
detail. (A zero in each color would produce a black with no detail at all.)
Click OK. - Click twice on the white-point eyedropper to open the Color Picker box again.
- Set the Red, Green, and Blue values at 244 to define the brightest white with
detail in a photograph. (The number 255 in each color would produce paper
white with no detail.) Click OK. - When the Levels box appears, click OK and then click Yes when the default
dialog box question appears.
Brightness and Contrast Exercise
In the last exercise, you’ll set up the Color
Pickers for printing. Now Photoshop (or
Photoshop Elements) is ready to save underex-
posed, washed-out, backlit, or just plain lifeless
images.- Open a poorly exposed image and save it
with a new name, such as a TIFF file or a
PSD file. - Choose Image, Adjustments, Levels. The
bell shape of the histogram confirms that
this photo has very low contrast, without
much black or white (see Figure 14.13). - Use Threshold to find the extremes. Threshold is great to use immediately
before Levels. Choose Image, Adjustments, Threshold to find the blackest and
whitest part of the image (see Figure 14.14). Open the Threshold window and
then move the slider all the way to the left. Slowly move it to the right until
you see black appear in areas you recognize. Those areas are the darkest part
of the image. Move the slider to the right and then slowly move it left to see
where the brightest areas are in the image. Remember these locations in the
image and then select them with the black and white eyedroppers in the
Levels dialog box later. - Click on the black-point eyedropper and find the darkest part of the image
that should have detail. In this image, it is the eye (unfortunately). Click to
set the black point.
CHAPTER 14 THE IMPORTANCE OF BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST 215tip
The Info palette might
help you find the white and
black points if you’re having
trouble. Choose Window,
Info to see the brightness
values.