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How to Edit a Picture to Low Key

Although light is a key component to any type of photography, shadows can be equally important. In portrait photography, photographers will often shoot in high key, where the portrait is bright and evenly lit, or low key, where the lighting will accentuate a profile, or one half of the subject, and the rest of the picture will be washed in dark. You can edit a picture to low key by adjusting settings in your photo editing software.

Instructions

- 1
  Open the photograph you want to edit in the editing software you most commonly use.
- 2
  Adjust the "Exposure" adjustment for the picture by moving the slider control to gradually darken the picture. Ideally the entire background in a low-key picture should be black. If the background in your picture is as bright as the subject, you may not be able to adjust the picture to a complete dark background.
- 3
  Adjust the "Contrast" adjustment for the picture by moving the slider control to increase the amount of contrast in the picture. Pictures need the correct amount of contrast for them not to look washed out. When you brighten a picture, it increases the contrast; when you darken a picture, the contrast lessens. As you decrease the exposure to make the picture darker, you will need to increase the contrast so the picture does not look flat.
- 4
  Save your low-key edited picture as a separate file from the original one you worked on.

Photography