Brightness/Contrast Tool

[Ed Rooney]

 

There’s a tool in Adobe PhotoShop now that I find very useful. But I’ve not seen anyone in the forum mention it.

 

I’m referring to the Brightness/Contrast tool in Ps in Adjustments. Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

 

This is my last stop in an image edit. This tool does a better job than earlier ways to control brightness and contrast without causing problems. Because I think the main reason for buying a single stock image is to illustrate one idea, I tend to give my Alamy images more punch. Some shooters disagree with this. If I were doing magazine picture stories, I would try to produce more natural images. If I were doing Live News, I would not edit at all.

 

Edo

[Steve F]

I try to avoid Photoshop (mostly because I'm not very good with it). Exposure/contrast tools in LR are pretty good - what can the PS tool do extra is my question I guess.

[MDM]

The Brightness/Contrast tool has been around forever, probably since Photoshop was born. It is a very basic tool, as classically it has had a linear response, which is a very unsubtle way of managing brightnes and contrast in an image and has tended to lie there unused for decades by most experienced Photoshop users - something for beginners. A bit like Programme mode on a camera.

 

However, I've just checked out the Adobe documentation and apparently it has been updated by Adobe and no longer has a linear response in normal mode. There is a legacy mode which does have a linear response and is not recommended for photos. So as you say it is probably doing a better job than it used to do. My preferred way of giving an image a bit of a contrast hit at the end if needed is to use a gentle S-curve which gives nice control over the tonal range but whatever gets you there is fine. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by MDM

[geogphotos]

I will generally give AutoContrast a blast just to see what it does, I sometimes use the slider you mention Edo. But usually I do that in ACR before getting to Photoshop. Sometimes just as a final touch I might see if a tweak on contrast or brightness adds a little.

Edited November 28, 2023 by geogphotos

[Allan Bell]

2 hours ago, MDM said:

The Brightness/Contrast tool has been around forever, probably since Photoshop was born. It is a very basic tool, as classically it has had a linear response, which is a very unsubtle way of managing brightnes and contrast in an image and has tended to lie there unused for decades by most experienced Photoshop users - something for beginners. A bit like Programme mode on a camera.

 

However, I've just checked out the Adobe documentation and apparently it has been updated by Adobe and no longer has a linear response in normal mode. There is a legacy mode which does have a linear response and is not recommended for photos. So as you say it is probably doing a better job than it used to do. My preferred way of giving an image a bit of a contrast hit at the end if needed is to use a gentle S-curve which gives nice control over the tonal range but whatever gets you there is fine. 

 

As I do not use Ps but LrC I use the "Dehaze slider" which, I think, probably give the same or better results.

 

Allan

 

[Ed Rooney]

 

I use Dehaze in LrC too. Not the same thing. How can I describe exactly what the newer Adjustment tool does? Hmmm. It makes the image look better. 

[M.Chapman]

6 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

There’s a tool in Adobe PhotoShop now that I find very useful. But I’ve not seen anyone in the forum mention it.

 

I’m referring to the Brightness/Contrast tool in Ps in Adjustments. Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Useful tip - It now works much better than the brightness adjustment that was in PSE7 (I've probably not tried it since then because it was so awful)

There's an article here https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/brightness-contrast/

According to the article a significant improvement was made way back in CS3 (2007?). Maybe they've made further revisions since?

 

Mark

[aphperspective]

I use the Dehaze in LrC mainly to show up dust spots, push it across to high and dust spots in the sky pop out.

[MDM]

4 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

As I do not use Ps but LrC I use the "Dehaze slider" which, I think, probably give the same or better results.

 

Allan

 

 

A great way to see what a tool actually does is to use it and view the histogram at the same time. Try it. You don't have to be an expert in Photoshop to open an image and use the Brightness/Contrast tool. You can access the Dehaze slider in Photoshop under the camera raw filter. 

[MDM]

53 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

 

According to the article a significant improvement was made way back in CS3 (2007?).

 

I would guess that might be it. It's not a feature that Adobe are likely to be investing a lot of time improving. I just had a look at it and it is definitely way ahead of the legacy version which does amazing things to the histogram. However, I don't envisage it becoming a part of my workflow anytime soon.

Edited November 28, 2023 by MDM

[Michael Ventura]

Was never a fan of the Brightness/Contrast tool but have not tried it in a while, perhaps it has improved.  I usually handle those two things in Adobe RAW.

[kimba]

 

I use all the contrasty things! 

 

But I do not use the tool within Adjustments (it has been there forever - I started with the old PS5 around 1999).

 

I do all of my adjustments in the Camera Raw Filter, even if I am just quickly editing an existing jpg. I use all of the basic sliders, plus Clarity, Dehaze, and Sharpening, and sometimes Texture, as they all affect different parts of the image. Most of the time I'm just nudging, sometimes I use all of them, sometimes one of them ... 

[Marianne]

    I've always avoided the Brightness/Contrast adjustment in PS, but with all the improvements in PS these past couple of years, I should check it out based on your recommendation.

 

      I have loved the Dehaze tool since they introduced it, and am more likely to use it than Contrast, though I often use an S-curve instead of either.  In a class I took at AdobeMAX a couple of years ago, the instructor suggested decreasing contrast slightly when you use dehaze to balance out the contrast. I think an S-curve does pretty much the same thing in terms of balancing things out. And how could you possibly use any of these tools without watching your histogram?. 

 

       I like using the Texture and Clarity sliders to give an image "pop." I try to take a light hand with anything that increases contrast (which includes Texture and Clarity), especially since I do all my post-processing in AdobeRGB. Getting the perfect "pop" in the AdobeRGB color space can mean blown highlights once I convert it to sRGB for stock but at least working in RAW means I can fiddle with the highlights and whites, decrease Contrast, all non-destructively in the new version, and then export to jpeg. It's a pain to edit in one color space only to have to re-tweak the "final" image in a different one, but I'm reluctant to do all my editing in sRGB, in case I need a version with a larger color space in the future. 

 

      My favorite new tool is masking in LR/ACR. In the past, when I had an image with a lot of clear blue sky, I wouldn't touch the contrast/dehaze until I converted to sRGB since the perfect "pop" in the AdobeRGB version could mean banding in the sky after the conversion. Now, with the masking tool in LR/ACR, it's a cinch to do all the adjustments that affect contrast only on the non-sky portion of the image, giving it all the "pop" it needs without worrying that I'll have to re-process the sky after conversion.

 

      There really are so many different ways to give an image "pop" these days. Our choices are what leads to our each having a different style. Post-processing is an essential part of photography, just as both our choice of film and our choices in the darkroom used to be (for those of us old enough to remember those days).  Granted, in the old days our style relied more heavily on what went on behind the camera, but even then our choice of film, even if someone else did the processing, effected the look of the photo. PS has replaced both our film choices and our darkroom skills in realizing our vision. It just makes a much greater impact. 

 

      I used to rely heavily on the Nik filters in my post processing and now that I mostly use the LR toolbox, I'm finding a way to replicate those choices. My images don't look different, I've just found a different way to get the result that I want. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Marianne

[Rico]

Funny this topic has come out now.

PhotoshopCAFE has a pretty good short video on this recently. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it looks interesting.

 

Most use this Photoshop tool WRONG! - YouTube

 

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, Rico said:

Funny this topic has come out now.

PhotoshopCAFE has a pretty good short video on this recently. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it looks interesting.

 

Most use this Photoshop tool WRONG! - YouTube

 

 

Interesting video. I tend to use the "levels" tool (in RAW) and histogram to initially adjust contrast and brightness. Can't speak to the Contrast/Brightness tool in PS because I don't use PS. I find that I have to be careful with levels adjustments, though.  Alamy still says that the black point should be at 0, white at 255 (or within 5% of), but this doesn't work for some images. In fact, it can totally wreck them. Please note, I'm a dummy when it comes to post-processing. 🙃

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by John Mitchell

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

Brightness/Contrast is my final step.

After all other RAW & Photoshop tools I use,

As I use it I am asking, "can I still make
image yet a bit more appealing to buyers?"

Almost never more than +10 Brightness on

still slightly dark images & +10-+20 on still

flat-looking images. IMO, buyers never

consider "refineness" of tools used...