Using Photoshop to Retouch Photos

The photo below was taken on the island of Kauai while on my honeymoon last November. It was a little to dark, so I wanted to lighten it and play with the color to make a higher quality image.

One of the tools I use a lot with photos is the shadows and highlights. After using brightness and contrast to light the photo, I opened the shadows and highlights tab. I turned the shadows up about 30 percent so that you could see the back of the cabana. I then turned the highlights down about 15 percent to lessen the glare of the sun on the beach. After this was complete, I played with the contrast again to adjust the oversaturation of color that couldn't be seen before.

One obstacle I faced was uploading the before picture to this blog. It kept saying that I was uploading a something that wasn't a picture. I had to manually change the file name and add a .jpg to it. After that, Blogger recognized it.

I think that I was successful at my objective: to lighten the photo and reveal the background. While it isn't a great photo in either form, this objective was achieved. I learned that sometimes a photos dark areas can reveal little details that are unseen. It's pretty incredible that all of the data is there but would go unnoticed.

I will use this a lot in the future. I even have the Photoshop app for my phone and will use it a lot when I am posting pictures to social media. I also may use it for presentations that I make in class.