How to Actually Understand and Use Levels Sliders to Edit Photos

Use contrast, exposure, highlights, etc. with intention. And learn the difference between an alpaca and a llama.

All photo editing programs have basic tools like contrast, brightness, exposure, etc. But if you’re like me, you don’t really know how to use them. You just move the levels sliders back and forth until the image looks good.

I wrote this post to finally teach myself (and you) how to edit with intention. To illustrate the differences in the before and after photos, I overadjusted the levels (using Photoshop and Lightroom).

I used pictures of alpacas and llamas to make the process fun. (As an added bonus, click on this link to learn how to tell the two apart.)

Brightness

Photo by Daniel Brachlow. Original (left), brightness set at 100 (middle), and at -100 (right).

Adjusting a photo’s brightness makes the image lighter or darker overall. It affects all of the pixels equally.

The difference between the original photo above left and the one in the middle is glaringly obvious. With the brightness increased to 100, the entire image, including the background, is lighter. The result is that the alpaca’s features are blown out…