Refining dynamic range using Levels

- One of the advantages of using adjustment layers…is they can affect the entire image,…or only a small portion.…In this example, we'll make a global change…to extend the dynamic range of the photo,…and then add a local adjustment…to the painted sign on the building.…Now, before I add my adjustment layer,…I'm gonna click on the tab for the histogram panel,…and I'm going to dock it with the colors and swatches.…Then from the bottom of the layers panel,…I'll select the adjustment layer icon,…and choose levels.…We can see on the properties panel,…that the level's adjustment layer…contains its own histogram.…

The blacks are on the left,…and the whites are on the right.…And I can remember that by just looking at the gradient…below the histogram.…This histogram tells me that the dynamic range…of this image is flat.…There aren't any true whites,…and there aren't any true blacks,…because the histogram stops before the darkest value.…If I want to increase the dynamic range of this image…so that it extends all the way from black to white,…