Lightroom Brightening Tool #1: The Exposure Slider

This picture is nice, but we’ve got a little problem. It’s a tad dark. Not severely underexposed, but the curtains are thoroughly blacked out and the subjects are a little underexposed – maybe one to two stops. How do we fix it?

The first tool we’ll look at is the Exposure slider. You can download the original image if you’d like to play along. Also, check the table of contents of this tutorial for links to the other tools that you can use to brighten an image.

First, let’s walk through a couple example settings and see what happens. Then, we’ll think a little bit about what makes the Exposure slider a unique tool distinct from Fill Light and Brightness.

Exposure +1: Getting There

In this image, I upped the Exposure by one stop (I drug the Exposure slider to +1.00). I’d say this is a step in the right direction. The clothes are pretty well exposed, and the skin tones aren’t too bad.

I also used the clipping indicators to stop just as I was starting to blow out some of the highlights. A few small parts of the white tee-shirt under the blue hoody (center-left) are blown out, but for the most part I didn’t lose any highlights.

Exposure +1.5: Good, But Maybe a Titch Too Much

If the only adjustment I made was the Exposure slider, this is probably where I’d stop. I upped the Exposure to +1.5. The skin tones are a little brighter, and generally the picture is good… but I’m disappointed that a little more of the picture is blown out. The white tee-shirts are all just a little too bright and in your face.

It’s important to notice here that there’s a fine line between a good image and an over-exposed image. This example hovers around that line – it might be a little too far for your tastes, and just a little bit brighter will almost certainly be too much.

Exposure +2.33: Way Too Far!

So, of course, I upped the exposure a little more to see what happens. And omg! It’s bright! We’ve definitely crossed the line.

At this point, the skin tones are way too bright. They’re starting to turn an odd color that isn’t exactly human. The whites are way blown out, and the entire scene is just a little blinding. At this point, we can’t even see the line we crossed. When this happens, immediately turn the Exposure back down and return to sanity.

Notice, however, that the curtains are still black. In fact, they seem even blacker due to the increased contrast between the blown out whites and the deep black of the curtains. Hmm…

So What Do We Learn from These Examples?

The Exposure slider will brighten an image, doing the most work with the brighter part of the image. It will effect the darker parts and brighten them a little bit. If you turn on the clipping indicators, you’ll notice that the amount of clipped black areas does drop significantly from the original image to +1.5.

But, there’s much more significant change in the brighter portions of the image. And once you reach the point that the bright areas start to blow out, you start to make the image way too bright. So slowly drag it up, and pay attention to those bright areas.

In fact, that tends to be my current rule of thumb while playing with the Exposure slider. With most images, I watch the histogram or turn on the clipping indicator and I drag the Exposure slider up slowly until the highlights just start to get blown out. Then, I back it off a little bit. If I know some areas (like the background) are going to be blown out, I pay more attention to the clipping indicators to see when the subject itself (like the guy in the white tee-shirt) starts to get blown out and turned into pure white.

Ready to move on?

• Next Part: Lightroom Brightening Tool #2: “Adding” Fill Light
• Back to the Table of Contents: Three Ways to Brighten Images in Lightroom: Exposure, Fill Light, and Brightness

[Note: The working image comes from coverage of the William Paterson Fashion Show and is owned by the photography studio Olinda Gibbons Photography. You are free to download, modify, re-post, whatever-you-want with it. Just don't sell it outright; that right remains with the original artist.]