Ed’s Guide: Leveling

Currently listening to “Let Go” by “Frou Frou
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Light Up The Kitten

You have those nice shots but it’s underexposed or overexposed ( too dark or too bright )? No wooories. I’ll tell you how to fix that.

For serious n00bs only. Adobe Photoshop required.

Figure 1: What Kitten? I see no Kitten

Okay, Figure 1 is our “specimen”. It’s my family kitten. Auw, isn’t she’s teh cutest? Ok, who cares whether it’s cute or not if the picture is too dark. Let’s fix that. In the guide, we’ll use “underexposed” image as a specimen, but it will work well with overexposed sometimes.

Figure 2: Kitten in Photoshop

Load up the picture in Photoshop.

Figure 3: Menu to Magic

Find “Levels” in ‘Menu > Adjustments > Levels…’ .

Figure 4: Levels Dialog Box

A dialog box will pop up ( refer to Figure 4 ).

Now, for extra information know how this thing works. Ok, look at the histogram ( the graph like thingie ). The x axis is the shades/lightness. On the left side of the graph is the darkest of shade where the right side of the graph is the brightest of light. The y axis of the graph is the amount of data available at that x axis. Let’s call the left side “Shade” and right side “Light”, okay? Our specimen, have almost zero data towards the light.

Let’s ignore the black-to-white bar because i dun wanna to confuse you.

See the three arrows below the histogram? That’s the range of shade/light. Black means the darkest of shade, grey is the midpoint and white is the lightest of shade. With these arrow, you can tell photoshop at which point you want the darkest or lightest to be. Example. If we move the white towards the center abit, the not so bright will become the brightest.

Back to the picture. The white arrow is at the brightest setting. But, there’s no data there. The brightest data the pic have is somewhere at the 10% there. Hmm.. maybe you even understand shit what i’m talking about. Well, no worries. Just do this:

Figure 5: Move the white arrow

Move the white arrow just like in Figure 5. Look at the pic now. Get the idea?

Figure 6 : Fixed

Most probably the you’ll get a noisy image after. That… can’t be help because of the data loss but hey, at least the pic looks better now rite? If you’re feeling adventurous, you can always play around with “Noise” filter option.

There’s another option if you’re too lazy to do this manual leveling: Auto Levels. Refer to Figure 3, you can find it below ‘Levels…’ option.

After that you can touch up a bit with Auto Colors or Auto Contrast, or both.

Figure X : Optional Touch ups

That should do it. Now, any questions, dun be shy to ask me. Everybody’s a n00b at start.

PS: Now… isn’t she’s teh cutest? *bite*