I can remember the days when I just got my first digital camera and was so disappointed when most of the shots turned out underexposed! During that time, I do not have much knowledge of photo correction technique in photoshop and I just leave the photos alone and wasted and finally deleted..  If I knew there is such an easy method to correct exposure problems in Photoshop, I would have done all I could to save those photos.

There are actually 2 simple techniques that you use to correct exposure problem in Photoshop.

Technique 1 - Using Layers

Step 1: Open the underexposed photo and duplicate the layer by pressing Control-J or finding the option in Layer Palette.

Step 2: Change the mode to Screen and you will see the photo brighten up instantly! (Use multiply if your photography is overexposed)

Step 3: Play with the opacity level to select the amount of adjustment you prefer. If even the opacity is at 100% and the photo still looks dark, just duplicate another layer and perform the same function.

Step 4: Once the photo looks okay, just flatten the image from the layer’s palette.

Technique 2 - Using exposure control

Step 1: Open the underexposed photo and go to Image>Adjustment>Exposure to bring out the exposure control. The exposure control is designed for HDR images but it still can be used to fix exposure problems in a way.

Step 2: Before you play with the exposure control, you need to have some basic understanding of the Histogram

The histogram is just like a frequency domain, which show the different kind and level of “frequency signals” in a space. The histogram tell you how many “darks” or shadows, how many “midtones” and how many “brights” or highlights from left to right (darkest to brightest).  For example, in an underexposed photo, there will be alot of “darks” and thus the histogram will be shifting to the left. An overexposed photo will have the histogram shifting to the right.

In the exposure control, you can see setting for Exposure, Offset and Gamma and they related to the following adjustments:

Exposure - Mainly increase photo highlights and opening midtones.

Offset - Increase shadow areas without affecting highlights

Gamma - Mostly affects midtone and some highlights.

Step 3: So you just have to play with the scroll bar to adjust the photo to an exposure level you prefer. If you find difficulties in dragging to the correct level to do the large increment in steps, try pressing control first and move the mouse cursor over the number field. You will see a scrubby slider and now you can adjust in smaller increments.

Do you have any other better methods that can be used to fix exposure problems?