Lighten a Photo in Fireworks

Sometimes photos from digital camera comes out a bit dark due to insufficient lighting. However, it can be easily enhanced using the Levels filter in Fireworks.

Before:

before photo was lighten

After:

after lighten with Levels

We are going to brighten, or lighten, the photo of the "before" picture using the Levels adjustment in Fireworks. For the purpose of this lesson, you can use your own photo or by use the "before" photo shown above. Simply right-click on the photo and save to your local disk.

Step 1: Try Auto-Levels

With the photo opened in Fireworks and selected with the Selection tool, choose menu Filters -> Adjust Color -> Auto Levels.

auto levels

And the following is what we get ...

after auto levels

Depending on the photo, the Auto Levels filter can sometimes do wonders and is a quick way to adjust the color of the photographs. However, in our case, it didn't have too much of an effect except to lighten the background wall just a bit. Let undo this command with Ctrl-Z.

Step 2: Using Manual Levels

To have better control, we will manually adjust the Levels by selecting menu Filters -> Adjust Color -> Levels...

If this menu command is not enabled, make sure that you have the image selected with the Selection tool before invoking the menu.

Step 3: Bound the Histogram

In the Levels dialog, you see the histogram of the output levels. Slide the right slider to the edge of the histogram as shown. And then let go of the slider.

levels dialog

With the Preview checkmarked, you can see the effect is that it had lighten the left wall. The effect is similar to that produced by Auto Levels. The idea in this step is to slide the left and right sliders so that they bound the edge of the histogram.

Step 4: Adjust the Mid-tones

However, we want to lighten the laptop further. Take the middle slider and move it to the left a bit. Let go of the slider to see a preview of the effect.

lighten midtones

Moving sliders to the left will lighten the image. Moving to the right will darken the image.

Step 5: Done

Click OK to the Levels dialog. See how after the photo has been lightened, the keys on the laptop become a bit more distinct.