Basic Photo Adjustments

Photoshop provides powerful tools to enhance and correct images. Whether you're adjusting brightness, fixing colors, or improving contrast, learning these basic photo adjustments will help you improve their workflow and create visually appealing images.

Opening Your Image

Open Photoshop and go to File > Open (Ctrl + O / Cmd + O).

Select the image you want to edit and click Open.

Adjusting Brightness and Contrast

Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Move the Brightness slider to lighten or darken the image.

Adjust Contrast to make highlights and shadows more defined.

Tweaking Colors with Hue/Saturation

Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Ctrl + U / Cmd + U).

Adjust Hue to shift colors across the spectrum.

Increase or decrease Saturation to make colors more or less intense.

Adjust Lightness to brighten or darken colors.

Correcting Exposure with Levels

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Ctrl + L / Cmd + L).

Adjust the Input Levels sliders:

Left slider (shadows) darkens blacks.

Middle slider (midtones) adjusts overall brightness.

Right slider (highlights) brightens whites.

Using Adjustment Layers for Non-Destructive Editing

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer.

Choose Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Hue/Saturation, or other adjustment types.

The adjustment will appear in a new layer, allowing you to edit it later without affecting the original image.

Saving Your Edited Image

Go to File > Save As (Shift + Ctrl + S / Shift + Cmd + S).

Choose a format:

PSD (Retains layers and adjustments for future edits.)

JPEG (For compressed images, suitable for web use.)

PNG (Best for images with transparency.)

Click Save and adjust quality settings if needed.

Last updated by Abigail Green - April 2025

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