The Basket Weaver

Sometimes the camera can be easily fooled with difficult lighting conditions. Our image was taken on a very bright sunny day with the subject sitting in the shade of his tent. This has produced a dark image with little detail in the shadow area of our image.. So let's see how we can improve this image using Photoshop Elements.

Starting with the Layers palette duplicate the background layer by dragging it over the 'create new layer icon' as shown above.

Tip. It's always a good idea to rename the layers as we are working. This can be done by right mouse clicking on our new layer and selecting 'Rename Layer' where we can then enter a name of our choice in the dialogue box.

It's always worth checking out the tonal range of our image using the Levels palette found under the Enhance > Brightness/Contrast > Levels menu. As we can see from the levels palette (shown above) our image is lacking in the lighter pixels, so by clicking on the slider we can move it inwards to the point where the pixels begin. Now clicking on the center slider we can move this to the left which will also introduce more of the lighter pixels. Be careful not to overdo this as the image will begin to loose detail.

Our image after Levels shown below.

Duplicate the Levels layer as before and rename.

Click to enlarge

From the Enhance menu select Fill Flash which will open the palette shown above. Moving the slider will further brighten the image revealing detail in the shadow.

Our completed image

Roll your cursor over the image to see the difference.