Okay I am going to try to get a few lessons on here this weekend.

I enhance my photos a lot. I do other things than this but here is the basics.

If you have a dark photo like this.



You can brighten it up and it will make your siggy look nicer.





First you want to adjust the curves. Go to Adjust>>Brightness and Contrast>>Curves





I normally pick the anchor point in the middle and slide it over to the left. Then I will sometimes click to create another anchor point at the top and bottom and slide it over. You sort of have to play around with this but it is really easy. You can see it will make your picture look a lot brighter.





After you do this your picture may look sort of dull and washed out. So you will want to adjust the contrast.

Adjust>>Brightness and Contrast>>Brightness/Contrast



Then just increase your contrast until you like the way it looks.

Excellent Patty! Thanks for doing this!

Thanks for the tip, never thought of playing with the curves to brighten a picture! Funny, since I have been playing with the curves editor all night to try and make glass text more glassy!

oh wow. that looks alot better. LOL I usually just do the one step and it doesn't look that great. Thanks for this!

COol...never did that...Will try it next time.I also duplicate the pic and add a layer of soft light over it. If it is too harsh, I adjust the opacity on that layer. I also of cours use smart photo fix and mess around the settings. I like adding more highlights. And also use the snap setting in virtual photographer alot.

Thanks for this! I have a lot of dark pictures, so this is a really big help!