How to adjust the picture contrast

Contrast may be the most important factor in a good black-and-white photographic work. If the contrast of an image is not enough, it will appear unremarkable. But if the contrast is too large, the details of highlights and dark parts will be lost. Because contrast has a great influence on the tone of an image, it is very important to control contrast.

Original image/Due to careless underexposure during shooting, the image appears to have insufficient contrast.

Traditional photographers will use photographic paper with different contrast levels to adjust the contrast. If it is a soft, low-contrast image, you will choose to enlarge it with 1 photo paper; Gao Fancha's image will use No.5 photo paper. In the digital age, there are many ways to adjust the contrast, but the most flexible method is to use color scales and curves. Some Photoshop beginners tend to "brightness/contrast", but this adjustment is very rough.

Histogram/Open the "Color Scale" command, and a histogram will appear, showing the hue relationship of the image. The horizontal direction is the hue range, and the vertical height represents the proportion of each gray level in the picture. In this case, medium gray and dark parts account for a large proportion. There is no information at the right end of the histogram, which means there are no highlights in the image.

Adjusting the highlight/moving the highlight slider to the middle will improve the contrast of the image. In this example, you can pull the slider to 19 1, and then high light spots begin to appear.