Brightness/Contrast is a simple way to make colors in an image brighter or darker. It may be used to make the colors in an image brighter or darker or to make the colors stand out more or less than those around them.

If you move the Brightness slider to the right, all the pixels in the image will become uniformly brighter. Sliding it to the left will make all of the pixels darker:

Contrast, on the other hand, will average out the pixels in the entire image. By moving the Contrast slider to the right, it will increase the difference between the lighter and darker pixels. Moving it to the left will make the dark and light pixels more uniform until they are nearly all the same.

Each of these options can increase or decrease by 100 percent of their original value. By playing with both the Brightness and the Contrast sliders together, you can make subtle changes to the photo that will eventually make your image stand out a bit more. You can reset your adjustments by hitting the small blue arrow to the right of the adjustment window.

However, if your image is really too dark or bright to begin with, the Brightness/Contrast option may not work that well and will just make your image muddy.

If you do have an image that is very dark or bright, you might be better off using the Curves adjustment explained next.