Understanding Adjustments (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Vibrance)

Understanding Adjustments (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Vibrance)

Understanding Adjustments

Brightness

• Brightness refers to the overall lightness or darkness of an image.
• This adjustment can make an entire image lighter or darker.
• Increasing the brightness can help illuminate details hidden in the shadows, but too much may wash out the highlights.

Contrast

• Contrast controls the difference in brightness between the light and dark areas of an image.
• This adjustment boosts or reduces the contrast between the darkest and brightest areas.
• High contrast images appear more dynamic, with vivid blacks and bright whites, while low contrast images appear more flat and grey.

Saturation

• Saturation pertains to the intensity of colours in an image.
• Increasing saturation can make an image’s colours vibrant and eye-catching, but too much saturation can result in unnatural and overly intense colours.
• Conversely, a decrease in saturation can mute colours, and a saturation setting of zero will convert the image to grayscale.

Vibrance

• Vibrance is a smart-tool that selectively adjusts the saturation of less-saturated colours while avoiding overly saturated colours.
• It boosts the muted colours without affecting the well-saturated ones, ensuring the image doesn’t appear unnatural.
• It’s an effective tool for situations where saturation increase results in overly bright and unrealistic skin tones.

Using Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Vibrance Together

• These four adjustments — brightness, contrast, saturation, and vibrance — can drastically alter the mood and appearance of an image.
• Mastery of these tools is important in understanding how to convey different moods and emotions through your photographs.
• Practise using these adjustments in different combinations, on a range of different images, to understand their effects and develop your unique editing style.