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Two Simple Re-touches to improve dark pictures
One of the most common problems are photos that are too dark. Here are two easy steps to improve your pictures.
First Keep in mind that everything will always print a little darker then it appears on a good, bright monitor. This is because paper is never as white as the light behind your screen.
Example: the picture below is a scan of a job that was printed both before and after it was retouched. As you can see the top one (the corrected one) has a lot more detail. This was very easy to do but you will need Photoshop (CS1 or newer) to use these tips.

Before
 
     
  Shadow/Highlight  
 

First, open the picture in Photoshop. Click on the Images menu, then Adjustments, then Shadow/Highlight. If you have an older version you will have to be in RGB mode.

 

  
  dialog  
 

In the resulting dialog box choose a Shadows amount that works for your picture. Click OK. Remember it should appear lighter then you want it to print.

 

  
  levels  
  Click on the Images menu, then Adjustments, then Levels... In the resulting dialog box enter a value more then 1 in the center (midtone) box and a value less then 255 in the right (Highlight) box. Leave the Output Levels alone. Click OK and save. Remember to change to CMYK mode if you are not already there.