Basic Photo enhancement on Photoshop

This will be a tutorial on how to basically enhance an image through photoshop. If you have a picture that lacks life in it then this simple and basic tutorial will help you improve the color of your image.

Let’s start of. I am going to show you how this picture

Original capture

Into something like this:

Enhanced Image Sample

It does have more life right? okay to start with, open your any versions of photoshop and select the picture you want to enhance with. Then on the lower right part of the screen under layers, drag the layer thumbnail to the 'create new layer' icon below. something like this:

This should be the outcome:

Notice that you now have two layer thumbnails under the layer options. Now you have the background copy of the image, let’s start enhancing the image.

The actual editing.

1st step: Change the Brightness and Contrast of your image. To do this, click on the black and white Circle on the lower right most of the screen.

Play along with the brightness and contrast level of the image until you get your desired preference. (refer to the image below)

2nd step: Repeat step 1 and select Vibrance. Play along with the vibrance level and the saturation level of the image. this fill will give a greener and a livelier effect on your image. (sample image below)

3rd step: Adding some retro effect on your image by filling gradient map (optional). i usually do this to add more beauty and color on the photo. here’s how to do it, again repeat step 1 and selectGradient Map. Now select combinations which you think will sooth to your image. I recommend the voilet-orange combination. add it to your fills. Then set its blending mode to Soft Light and finally reduce its opacity until it fully blends with the picture. (see image below)

and it’s DONE!! here’s the final outcome of the enhanced/edited picture.

feel free to ask questions. hope this helps especially to the newbies of the photoshop thing.