If you find that the black and white version of your photo is either too light or too dark, we can easily lighten or darken it by combining the Luminosity blend mode with a couple of other blend modes. As we learned in the Five Essential Blend Modes For Photo Editing tutorial, Photoshop's Screen blend mode can quickly brighten a dark image, while the Multiply blend mode is great for darkening an image that's too bright. Let's see how to use these two blend modes to improve our results.

Step 4: Combine Both Layers On To A New Layer

Photoshop won't allow us to use more than one blend mode with a layer, so let's combine our two existing layers on to a new layer above "Layer 0". With "Layer 0" selected in the Layers palette, press Shift+Ctrl+Alt (Win) / Shift+Command+Option (Mac) to quickly combine both layers on to a new layer. You should now see a new layer named "Layer 2" sitting above the original two layers. The new layer contains a copy of our black and white image:

Step 5: Change The Blend Mode To Either Screen Or Multiply

If your black and white version is too light, change the blend mode of the new layer to Multiply:

This will instantly darken the entire photo, bringing out image detail that may have been hidden when the photo was overly bright. Unfortunately in my case, the Multiply blend mode makes the image too dark:

Let's try lightening it. To lighten a dark image, change the blend mode of the top layer to Screen:

The entire photo now appears lighter than it was originally, although again in my case, the overall image is too bright:

One specific problem with my black and white version that I'd like to be able to fix is that the girl's grandfather appears darker than the other two people in the photo. The Screen blend mode was able to brighten him, but since it affected the entire image, it made the rest of the photo too bright. Let's see how we can easily target just the girl's grandfather without brightening any other areas using a layer mask!