Apply the Brightness/Contrast adjustment

The Brightness/Contrast adjustment provides a straightforward way to lighten or darken your image and expand or compress its tonal range. Use this adjustment when you need quick brightness and contrast changes without precise control over specific tonal ranges.

For more precise control over shadows, midtones, and highlights separately, consider using Levels or Curves adjustments instead. Brightness/Contrast works best for simple corrections and works non-destructively when applied as an adjustment layer.

Create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer

Understand normal and Legacy modes

When Use Legacy is selected in the Properties panel, the adjustment uniformly shifts all pixel values. This approach can cause loss of detail in bright or dark areas and is not recommended for photographic images. However, Legacy mode may be useful for editing masks or scientific imagery that require uniform shifts.

Use Legacy is automatically selected when you open Brightness/Contrast adjustment layers created in earlier versions of Photoshop.

Apply adjustments directly to a layer

You can apply Brightness/Contrast directly to an image layer by selecting Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. This method permanently modifies the pixels on that layer and discards image information, making it difficult to refine your edits later.

For greater flexibility, use adjustment layers instead. Adjustment layers let you modify settings at any time without affecting your original image data.