The Light panel in Photos helps you correct the exposure of your images. In this video, Derrick shows how to use the Light panel in editing mode in Photos for macOS Sierra.
- [Instructor] The bulk of my image editing is either light or color, and we're going to take a look at light right now. We'll work with this image for both light and color. I'm going to go ahead and hit the return key. That brings me into Edit mode, and then I'm going to click on Adjust and that reveals the Light panel. I'm going to go ahead and close this for a second, and I think I'm going to add the histogram just because it will help me explain what's going on as I make these adjustments. This is the bright area of the image, this is the dark area, and these are the middle tones, and right here this represents these different tones here.
It will change as we make our adjustments. Now as I hover over Light, some buttons are revealed. We have a Down button here and this reveals the individual sliders, and you see that some adjustments have been made, and you go, "Oh, my." Well, let's start from the beginning. We don't want those adjustments right now. So I'll show you the little down arrow right here and that's the reset. So now we can go back to the very beginning. Everything is squared up.
Now there's an Auto button here, and I really like it and I think it's a great way to start working on an image. Just tap on Auto. Photos will analyze the image and take its best shot at improving it. We'll reset that again. Then you have the Master slider right here that makes all sorts of adjustments at once, another good way to go. So you have some really great options for starting out improving your image. I'm going to reset this.
We'll go with Auto for right now and then I'm going to tell you a little bit about the individual sliders. Exposure and Highlights work together and they cover this part of the histogram. Exposure is the bright area of the image. You see as I move it to the right, see how bright things get? You can see how the histogram is moving over to the right. Now if I want things bright, but I want to recover some detail in those bright areas, that's what Highlights does. It helps me recover detail from the bright area of the image.
We'll go ahead and reset that. Black Point and Shadows works together at the other end of the histogram, on the left end. So now I'm making the blacks blacker, and if I want to open up some detail in those black areas, I can do that with the Shadow slider. So those two work together. I'll just reset that. Brightness, those are the middle tones. So you see how the middle part of the histogram is moving around.
Now, generally speaking, the way a lot of people work is they'll set their Exposure first, their Black Point second, and then adjust Brightness right here. If you want to adjust both ends, both the brights and the darks at the same time, that's what Contrast does. See how it's pushing it outward? Or if you go the other way, it'll bring it inward. So Contrast is a two-for-one, and you can turn it off and on, and you can see it before and after by checking and unchecking this box.
This box is checked the minute that you make an adjustment. Watch, the box will be checked, see? This is really handy when you're doing a lot of adjustments in different areas and you want to reset one or just see a before and after of one area without affecting the rest of the image. Same thing with Reset, it only resets this one panel, not everything else. Now let's talk about Brilliance. Brilliance is brand new in Photos 2.0 and it is so complicated, I can't even paraphrase it, so I'm going to read you from the Help menu, it's that crazy.
Applies region-specific adjustments to bright and dark areas, pull in highlights, and add contrasts to reveal hidden detail, and to make your photo look richer and more vibrant. The adjustment is color-neutral. No saturation is applied, but there may be perceived change in color, because brighter images with more contrast appear more vibrant. Brilliance is brand new in 2.0 and it's a heck of a slider. A lot of times you can just use it, and you can see it does all sorts of things at once.
In this case, I'm going to pull down Brilliance a bit, like that, and we're just going to leave it right there. Now if we want to see our before and after, I can just check and uncheck that. We also have the master key trick where I press the M key to see before and after. The difference between the master key and this circle right here is that the master key would be before and after for all the changes, and this is just right here. So that's a look at the Light adjustment in Photos 2.0.
There's a lot going on here. It's very sophisticated yet it's easy to use.
Author
Released
11/30/2016Later, he walks you through how to use the application's basic editing tools, as well as more advanced elements like the histogram, a graphical chart of the tones in your pictures. Learn how to share your images to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, work with video taken on a camera or smartphone, and tap into the power of iCloud to access your images from your personal devices.
Are you still using OS X El Capitan and its older version of Photos, Photos for OS X? You may want to check out Derrick's Photos for OS X Essential Training course, which covers all of the features in Photos 1.0.
- Navigating the Photos user interface
- Importing images from your hard drive or camera
- Understanding how Memories are created
- Working with metadata, location information, and object recognition
- Mastering the Albums tab
- Creating calendars, cards, and books
- Sharing your photos online
- Managing your system library
- Editing and exporting videos
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Introduction
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Welcome56s
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1. Get Started with Photos
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Check your preferences5m 4s
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Work in the Photos tab5m 12s
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2. Take Control of Your Images
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Hide and unhide photos2m 44s
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Delete photos3m 36s
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Duplicate a photo2m 28s
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Work with Live Photos1m 37s
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3. Work with Metadata
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How Photos displays metadata3m 29s
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Use the Keyword Manager3m 52s
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Change or add location data5m 42s
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Benefits of location data4m 28s
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Leverage object recognition2m 56s
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4. Master the Albums Tab
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Merge albums55s
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Organize the My Albums area2m 21s
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Build and edit Smart Albums3m 24s
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5. Memories
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The Memories tab3m 53s
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View your Memories4m 16s
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Make a Memory a favorite1m 13s
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Delete a Memory1m 47s
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Create your own Memory1m 10s
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Share Memories with others1m 39s
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Play Memories on your iPhone4m 15s
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6. People, Places, and Details
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People and Faces3m 13s
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Name people2m 15s
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Add faces to People album3m 17s
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Mark a person as a favorite1m 51s
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Work in the Places album4m 3s
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How the Details view works1m 20s
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7. Basic Editing Tools
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Switch to Edit mode1m 31s
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Rotate photos1m 13s
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Crop and straighten photos3m 52s
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Apply Enhance2m 4s
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Work with light adjustments5m 16s
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Work with color adjustments2m 50s
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Show before and after2m 17s
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Work with B&W adjustments4m 25s
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Apply filters2m 2s
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8. Advanced Editing Techniques
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Enable and work with Sharpen3m 57s
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Enable and work with Levels6m 54s
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Use the Retouch tool4m 21s
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Copy and paste adjustments2m 48s
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Use RAW as original1m 21s
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Find editing extensions2m 43s
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9. Share Your Photos Online
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Work with the Share menu1m 59s
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10. Build Projects
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Create a book5m 57s
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Create a card4m 48s
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Create a calendar5m 14s
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Author a slideshow9m 9s
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Clean up the Projects window1m 25s
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Order a print2m 35s
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Make your own print3m 44s
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11. Library Management
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The system library2m 31s
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Create a Reference Library5m 15s
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Back up your libraries2m 37s
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12. Work with Video
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Trim a video clip2m 1s
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Export a single frame1m 23s
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Export an edited movie2m 4s
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Conclusion
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Next steps2m 26s
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Video: Work with light adjustments