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mwfast
Participating Frequently
February 2, 2018
Question

changing brightness of a selected area

  • February 2, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 29048 views

I have a photo with a very bright, over exposed hand. I have selected it with the lasso tool. How do I adjust the exposure/brightness on just this area?

    4 replies

    Bojan Živković11378569
    Community Expert
    Bojan Živković11378569Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 5, 2025

    Lately, I've found exposure adjustment particularly useful for this kind of work. It can be used on its own or combined with other adjustments as needed.

    Stephen Marsh
    Community Expert
    Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 4, 2018

    Is the original a raw file or rendered such as a JPEG?

    If the latter, copy the selection to a new layer and then try the shadow/highlight command.

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 3, 2018

    mwfast  wrote

    I have a photo with a very bright, over exposed hand. I have selected it with the lasso tool. How do I adjust the exposure/brightness on just this area?

    I have a feeling that you'll find you do not get a good result with the adjustment layer. If that is the case, copy the image and paste it to this thread, and we'll show you the best way to fix it if possible.  The bottom line tends to be that a blown pixel will always be a blown pixel, and you can't detail back, but there are a few tricks you can often use.

    M
    mwfastAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    February 4, 2018

    Thank you. Looking forward to seeing what you can do.

    Mohammad.Harb
    Community Expert
    Mohammad.HarbCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 2, 2018

    Click on the layer mask icon in the layer panel and select one of the following :

    1- brightness and contrast

    2- Levels

    3- curves

    then adjust the values

      H
      Hominid Pinkage
      Participating Frequently
      October 5, 2018

      I'm trying to follow this, but after I export from Photoshop I find that the entire image is lightened or darkened depending on what I was trying to do to the selected area.  For instance:here's the original image I took today:

      30168547037_fd2dfa47f1_o_d.jpg

      And here's the adjusted image.  I only wanted to darken the rose, but the whole image has gone darker.

      43292541810_36b8748ab7_o_d.jpg

      One can make the case that the entire original image was overexposed anyway, and the best approach is to simply darken the whole thing.  Still, I'd like to know how to darken just the rose. 

      Steps taken:

      (1) Loaded JPEG image into Photoshop

      (2) Quick-selected the rose and made a new layer by cutting.

      (3) Turned off display of each layer except the one with the rose cutout

      (4) With that layer highlighted in the Layers window, I clicked on the adjustment icon and used the Darkness/Contrast tool in the context menu.

      What am I forgetting/missing?

      Mohammad.Harb
      Community Expert
      Mohammad.HarbCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 5, 2018

      The adjustment layer will be applied to all the layers below,

      you need to click on the make clipping mask icon in the adjustment layer ( the icon with a down arrow ).

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