If you've got an old photo that's washed out, lacking detail, and generally so light that it's just about unusable, try this amazingly fast technique to quickly bring back detail and tone. Step One©JIM WORKMAN Open the washed-out photo. Step TwoDuplicate the Background layer by dragging it to the Create a New Layer icon at the top of the Layers palette. This creates a layer called "Background copy." Step ThreeChange the layer blend mode of the Background copy layer by choosing Multiply from the pop-up menu at the top left of the Layers palette. As the name implies, this has a "multiplier" effect that darkens the photo and brings back some of the tonal detail. Step FourIf the image is still too blown out, continue making copies of this duplicate layer (which is already set to Multiply mode) by pressing Control-J until the photo no longer looks washed out. If the last layer that you add makes it too dark, just lower the Opacity setting of this layer until it looks right. Step FiveNow you may have a new problemyou've got a bunch of layers. The more layers you have, the larger your Elements file, and the larger your Elements file, the slower Elements goes, so there's no sense in having a bunch of extra layers. It just slows things down. So, once the photo looks good, go to the Layers palette, click on the More flyout menu, and choose Flatten Image to flatten all those layers down into one Background layer. Before After |