How to lighten dark areas of a photo?

[zBernie]

How can I lighten only the dark areas of a photo?  In the photo fragment below, I'd like to lighten the dark areas which contain blacks, and dark greens.  I tried using the channel mixer but it always seems to lighten other areas except for the blacks, even though I select CYMK/Black for the output channel.

-Thanks

 

[RichardMH]

Does the Shadows slider not work?

[v_kyr]

Another way is performing a "Selective color" change on blacks & greens. Or just old school dodging over the wanted dark areas.

[zBernie]

8 hours ago, RichardMH said:

Does the Shadows slider not work?

The shadows slider works, but I find it also lightens areas I do not want lightened.  I was looking for a more targeted approach.

[zBernie]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Another way is performing a "Selective color" change on blacks & greens. Or just old school dodging over the wanted dark areas.

The Selective Color tool works, but even though I am specifying blacks, the entire photo is affected.  I was looking for a more targeted approach.

[iconoclast]

You could try the following (maybe a little nonorthodox): pick the colour of the lighter areas and fill a separate layer with it. Place that layer below the image layer. Open the Mix Modes on that image layer (Cogwheel symbol on the top right of the Layers Panel) and drag the left curve point of the left window vertically down as long as you need. This should make the darker areas let the background shine through.

[zBernie]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Another way is performing a "Selective color" change on blacks & greens. Or just old school dodging over the wanted dark areas.

I just tried a "Select sampled color", selected a black area, then used a brightness adjustment.  That worked very well.

[smadell]

Two fairly easy suggestions. The first one is to use a Curves adjustment. The second one is to use a Brightness and Contrast adjustment, along with Blend Options.

Curves:

Brightness & Contrast / Blend Options

[zBernie]

4 hours ago, smadell said:

Two fairly easy suggestions. The first one is to use a Curves adjustment. The second one is to use a Brightness and Contrast adjustment, along with Blend Options.

Curves:

Brightness & Contrast / Blend Options

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[RichardMH]

10 hours ago, zBernie said:

The shadows slider works, but I find it also lightens areas I do not want lightened.  I was looking for a more targeted approach.

As above, blend ranges lets you fine tune it.

[Ron P.]

Could this be what you're wanting to achieve? Brighton the greens & black in the shadows?

 

[thomaso]

On 9/15/2022 at 5:12 AM, zBernie said:

seems to lighten other areas

What about a pixel selection to limit the desired colour range? It lets you choose a specific range only (> low tolerance) + soften the selection edges if wanted (> refine > feather). Then e.g. a Levels or a Curve Adjustment.

Or a more simple / less precise way with blend mode + blend range curve applied to a copy:

 

[zBernie]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

What about a pixel selection to limit the desired colour range? It lets you choose a specific range only (> low tolerance) + soften the selection edges if wanted (> refine > feather). Then e.g. a Levels or a Curve Adjustment.

Or a more simple / less precise way with blend mode + blend range curve applied to a copy:

 

 

Yes, I used a Select -> Select Sampled Color then adjust the tolerance.  So far this gives me the best targeted approach.  See my other post regarding this.

[thomaso]

17 minutes ago, zBernie said:

Select -> Select Sampled Color then adjust the tolerance.

Just in case its tolerance option is not precise enough: After applying this selection method you still can switch to a selection tool to get access to the Refine option of your selection.

Whereas the Flood Select Tool gives more flexibilty with its add | subtract | intersect options while each can be used with a separate tolerance.

[zBernie]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Just in case its tolerance option is not precise enough: After applying this selection method you still can switch to a selection tool to get access to the Refine option of your selection.

Whereas the Flood Select Tool gives more flexibilty with its add | subtract | intersect options while each can be used with a separate tolerance.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

[iconoclast]

If you want to neutralize the dark areas, you could also duplicate the layer, convert the top layer to greyscales and apply the blend mode "Subtract" to it. Haven't tested it, but I think it should work. As an alternative you could also invert the greyscale top layer and apply the blend mode "Luminosity" to it. As I said, I didn't test it, so without warranty, but something like that should work. And you can finetune the result with the Opacity slider.

However, there isn't just one way of doing it.

[zBernie]

7 hours ago, iconoclast said:

If you want to neutralize the dark areas, you could also duplicate the layer, convert the top layer to greyscales and apply the blend mode "Subtract" to it. Haven't tested it, but I think it should work. As an alternative you could also invert the greyscale top layer and apply the blend mode "Luminosity" to it. As I said, I didn't test it, so without warranty, but something like that should work. And you can finetune the result with the Opacity slider.

However, there isn't just one way of doing it.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind.  So far my favorite way is doing a Select -> Select Sampled Color, then adjusting the tolerance from there.