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› › HOW TOADJUST THE BRIGHTNESS
Now that we have the color we want,
it’s time to make some adjustments to
the brightness, but rather than using
the Basic panel sliders, we’ll use a
Curves adjustment. In the Tone Curve
panel, we’ll make our adjustments on
the Point tab. The graph we see for an
aurora image will generally show that
there are peaks in the shadows, drop-
ping off toward the midtones and
fading away altogether in the high-
lights. What we want to achieve is to
raise what’s sitting toward the right
end of the graph, targeting those
midtones and highlights.
As a matter of preference, I like
to start by raising the black point
slightly to give a slightly “lifted-black”
look. To do this, we need to grab the
bottom-left point of the curve and
drag it up very slightly, resulting in
an Input value of 0 and an Output
value of 10 (displayed below the
chart). What’s actually happening is
that we’re shifting the value of the
black from a true black to something
a little duller, which means there will
be no true black in our image and a
little less contrast at the darker end
of the spectrum as a result.
Next up, let’s go across the rest
of the curve adjustment and give a
little more power to the light within
the scene. Looking at where the
chart peaks—so we know where
the light actually is within the scene,
as represented on a graph—we can
select areas where we wish to raise
the highlights by simply clicking-
and-dragging on our linear curve. It’s
worth noting that we’ll apply these
adjustments across the spectrum of
the image, but we can choose to
target the tonality of specific colors
within RGB by making the appropri-
ate selection in the Channel menu.
The adjustments made here bring a
slight elevation to the curve. You’ll