How to edit brightness of images

[bal3rbypro]

I would like to include my brother in a picture. When you add his image, it looks "brighter" than other aspects of the image. How do I make the image "pale" so it looks like it belongs to the image? I also need to do the same with some letters that should be added to the image. Can someone suggest some actions I can take? TIA

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[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post screenshots with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible? 

[Mike_Gondek]

Image >> Adjsustments >> Match Color

You choose from another open image or layer set here, where I circled in red.

[Mike_Gondek]

Don't judge by initial impressions, Match Color does a fantastic job. Get ready to fade it back as it overcompensates and the luminance and saturation are often too much with the defaults.

You can fine-tune even more using filter >> Camer Raw Filter. All your color controls in one place, and the shadow highlight is usually good to adjust there. Will take some learning to get camera raw working, but you will find patterns like increase dehaze for richness, then decrease shadow and black fi for example the detail in blacks is too dark.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Personally I consider any Adjustment that has to be applied destructively as problematic and would prefer an Adjustment Layer-approach. 

But, I guess, it depends on the source material, the volume and the requirements. 

[TheDigitalDog]

Well at some point, there is going to be data loss. Layers or otherwise. Make a print, the 'flattened' data is sent to the printer; data loss (moot in high bit). 

Save off a TIFF or likely JPEG for web view, of course, more data loss. 

Layers allow us to edit and re-edit as much as we wish, and postpone the data loss unless all you do is view the layered image in Photoshop or anything that can view the layered image. But outside high bit workflows, there's data loss. While this is true with high bit data, there's enough data padding where it isn't visible. 

[jane-e]

@bal3rbypro 

Are you and @marks7128949 the same person? The same question with almost identical wording was asked in this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/how-to-edit-brightness-of-images/m-p/...

Jane