Screen Your Way To Better Exposure In Seconds With Photoshop

Step 3: Duplicate The New Layer If Needed

If you find that your image is still too dark, with "Layer 1" still selected in the Layers palette, press Crtl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) again to duplicate it, which gives you a second copy of your image. Notice that Photoshop automatically sets the blend mode of this new layer to Screen for us, since that's what Layer 1 was set to when we made a copy of it. No need to change it ourselves this time. See how easy this is?

And now, with two copies of my image both set to the Screen blend mode, the exposure is looking even better.

You can repeat this step as many times as you feel you need to if you think your image still looks too dark. I think my image could still use just a bit more of an exposure boost, so I'll make yet another copy of my image with Crtl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac), giving me three copies of my image in the Layers palette, each set to the Screen blend mode:

Once again, no need to set the blend mode to Screen manually. Photoshop goes ahead and does that for me since the layer I copied was set to Screen. Now my photo is looking very well exposed, all from doing nothing more than spending a few seconds duplicating layers and having each one set to Screen. Here's my image now:

Step 4: Lower The Opacity Of The Top Layer To Fine-Tune The Exposure

The only problem now is that I think I've gone too far. With this third duplicate layer added, my image is looking a bit too bright. I need to lessen the impact it's having on the image somehow so I can cut back just a little on the exposure, and I can do that easily by lowering the opacity of this layer.

With this top layer selected, I'll just go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, move my mouse directly over the word "Opacity" which turns my mouse icon into the scrubby sliders, and then I'll simply click and drag my mouse to the left to lower the opacity value of this layer. I'll set my opacity to about 30%. The value that looks best with your image will most likely be different, but 30% seems to work good for mine.

And here's my final result. For comparison, the original underexposed version is shown in the left half of the image, and the corrected version is on the right.

Again, if your image is of some importance to you, it's always best to fix any tonal problems with Levels or Curves, but if all you need is a quick and easy way to brighten an underexposed photo, just:

• Duplicate the Background layer with Crtl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac)
• Set the layer blend mode of the new layer to Screen
• Press Crtl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac) to create as many duplicate layers as needed until the exposure looks a bit too bright
• Fine-tune the exposure by lowering the opacity of the last duplicated layer until you're happy with the results

The whole process should take only seconds, and you're done! That's how quick and easy it is to brighten an underexposed image using the Screen blend mode in Photoshop.

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