How To Adjust Levels In Photoshop

So have you ever what Levels are used for in Photoshop? In this video, I’m gonna show you how to adjust Levels in Photoshop and when to use them in Photoshop. Be sure to check out the show notes in the description. Let’s get started.

So what do you use Levels for in Photoshop? You use Levels adjustment to correct tonal range and the color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of image shadows, midtones and highlights. So there’s a few different ways that you can actually get to your Levels adjustments. First one is if you come up here to Image, Adjustments, Levels. In this Levels adjustment, when you make this adjustment, when you make this adjustment, it is making the adjustment right on the layer itself. So if I make a change here and say Ok. I can’t go back and change that again without starting over again. So that’s kind of a destructive method to actually make your Levels adjustment.

But what I can do is right click on this layer and convert to Smart Object. And now when I come up here to Image Adjustment, Levels and if I make a change, say I make this a little brighter. Say Ok. Now I have a Smart Filter and the filter name is called Levels. If I double click on that, I can bring up the Levels dialogue and I can make another change and say Ok. So that’s a nondestructive way of using that Levels adjustment.

But there’s a better way. A better way is if I come up here to Layer, New Adjustment Layer, click on Levels and I can name it anything I want. Say Ok. And now here is a Levels adjustment layer and I can click on the properties and make adjustments to those properties. Click on the properties again, make more adjustments. So I can keep on going back and forth and making my adjustments.

And so this is another nondestructive way to create a Levels adjustment. And I can come down here to the bottom of the Layers panel, and click on Create New Adjustment Layer and here is Levels that I could’ve created it that way also. And so as part of the Levels adjustment properties is a histogram and this histogram is our visual aid to changing our shadows and our highlights and our midpoints. It gives us an idea of where these values are on this histogram.

How To Adjust Levels In Photoshop

So let’s look at how to use Levels. So we have three sliders here on the top. That’s our input levels. And two sliders down here. That’s out output levels. So on our inputs, the slider on the left is the dark levels. So moving the dark slider to the right increases the dark areas of the image. Moving the white slider to the left increases the light areas of the image. Moving the midpoint will allow you to brighten by moving to the left and to darken by moving to the right. So the output slider is kind of the opposite of the effect of the input slider. So I’ve darkened my image with the black slider right here. And if I wanna fade off on that a little bit, I just move the output slider from the black point and it kind of fades it out, see that. And if I come over here to the white point slider, and say I wanna back off a little bit on the input adjustment for the white point, I could just slide this over to the left a little bit and see it takes a little bit of that lightness out, makes it a little bit darker so it makes the white one over here a little bit darker. So they work in conjunction with each other. So you can look at the output slider for the black point. It fades the shadows and you can look at the output slider for the white point ’cause it kinda dulls the highlights. So for RGB, that is how your sliders affect the shadows, highlights, and the midpoint.

Adding Contrast and Brightness – Adjust Levels In Photoshop

Let’s make a couple of adjustments here. So now we have these eyedroppers up here that can be used to set the black point and the white point in the image. If I click on this top eyedropper and click in a dark area of the image. There’s my black point and this is the white point eyedropper. I click on that. Click on another area and it kind of brightened up the image. So that’s how you would use the Eyedropper tool to set the white point and the black point in an image. So that gave it a little bit more punch. But a better way to do that and I’m gonna reset this, and I’m going to bring the black point slider of the input over just a little bit. And I’m gonna bring the white point slider over just a little bit too.

So I just added contrast to and image and that’s probably the simplest, easiest use of the Levels adjustment is to add contrast to an image just by moving those two sliders, the black point and the white point sliders. Just move ’em in a little bit. And as I was saying before, the output, if I wanted to fade out a little bit of the black point, I can use my output slider on the black point and bring it over and you see that, it kind of fades it. And I can do that with the white point slider in the output and it will darken some of those highlights, kind of even it out. And you can always use the midpoint to adjust it to however you like. And there is the before and the after.

So that’s the simplest way to add some contrast to an image with Levels. And we also learned how to adjust the input sliders and the output sliders. And the use for the black point eyedropper and the white point eyedropper. There’s the before and there’s the after. Hello, I’m Charles. Welcome to the channel. If you’re into Photoshop, Lightroom and photography, and even a little video and video editing, please consider subscribing and click the bell notification so that you’re notified when we release brand new content every single week.

Remove Color Cast – Adjust Levels In Photoshop

So another use of Levels is its ability to remove a color cast. In this photo here, you could see that there’s a blue color cast. I mean it looks good with the colors that are here but just for illustration purposes, we’re gonna change this color cast. So now I’m gonna bring up the properties of the adjustment layer and it looks like the white point needs to come over a little bit. So I’m bringing the white point slider over and it’s brightened it up a little bit in the highlights. There is the before, there’s the after. And now, let’s work with this middle eyedropper, which is the gray point. So to start off, you just click around in the image and try to find someplace that is a neutral gray and as you could see, you can click around and all kinds of strange things will happen. But you find that point where it’s close and it warmed it up a little bit. But I’m gonna take down the opacity. That’s all the way down. And just bring it up just a little bit and so there you go. Warmed it up a little bit and removed the blue color cast. But that’s an example of using color correction with the Levels adjustment.

Using Red Green and Blue Channels To Adjust Levels in Photoshop

So we talked about RGB. So now we talked about the individual channels. So we can add red using the Levels with your slider on the left. You can add cyan into the shadows. The slider on the right, you can add red into your highlights. And you have your mid-tone, to the left you’re adding red, to the right you’re adding cyan. So cyan being the opposite of red, with your output slider, it’s kind of the opposite. With the slider on the left, I’m adding red into my shadow, and with the slider on the right, I am adding cyan into my lighter areas. So that’s how red works. Now the same thing with green. So the opposite of green is magenta. So now with the left-hand slider, we’re adding magenta into the shadows. And the right-hand slider, we’re adding green into the highlights. Your midpoint green into the highlights and magenta into your shadow area for the midpoint. And your output sliders is the opposite where now we’re adding in green into the shadow area and the output on the right-hand side. We’re adding in magenta through the highlights. And the blue channel, the same. The left-hand slider, we’re adding yellows into our shadows. And on the right-hand side, we’re adding more blue into our highlight areas. And the midpoint, that we’re adding more blues and more yellows. And with the output sliders, it’s opposite. So adding blue into the shadows and adding yellow into the highlights.

Color Toning – Adjust Levels In Photoshop

So now let’s use Levels to do color toning. I’m gonna click on my properties here and I wanna add some contrast. So I’m gonna bring my black point slider over to the right a little bit. So there’s some contrast and let’s see, a little bit of highlight. So I’m bringing over my white point just slightly. And now I’m gonna select red, and I’m gonna bring a little cyan over into the shadows. I’m going to select green and with the output slider, I’m gonna add green into the shadows. And now I’m going to select blue and then with the output slider on the shadows, I’m gonna add some blue. And then, I’m gonna go back to red and with my midpoint slider, I’m gonna take that to the right to about 88 and let’s see how that looks. There it is before and there’s after. So I did a little color toning there.

So a word about Curves. I’m sure everybody’s wondering about Curves and Levels, how they compare, but there’s a lot of things that Curves will do that we just did with Levels. But Curves has a couple other features but for the type of adjustments, we did, I think these are easy to follow and easy to do with Levels. And if you wanna know more about Curves, I have a video in the card that you can watch.

So now to the question of the day. What do you think of Photoshop Levels? Do you plan to use them more? Let me know in the comments below. If this video was helpful, give it a like and don’t forget to subscribe. If you want more short tutorials, see the ones above and remember, it’s never too late to learn. Thanks for watching. See you in the next video.

See my photography website here 👉 https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com

See my article on Photoshop Curves here 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/the-power-of-curves-in-photoshop-3-best-tips/