• Open the image you wish to use in Photoshop. For this tutorial, I am using a photo taken by Laura. I resized it to fit this format.

  

• The first thing I did for this photo is go to Images > adjustments > auto levels. As a result, the lights and darks were evened out just a bit. It now looks like this:

  

• Now, I would like to make the reef lighter, but not the rest of the photo. To do that, duplicate the layer using your layers palette. If you don't see your layers palette on your desktop, go to Windows >  then put a checkmark next to layers. Duplicate the layer by dragging and dropping the layer down to the icon at the bottom of the palette that looks like a sheet of paper with the corner folded down.

  

• Now your layers palette should have 2 layers showing. Click on the top layer to make it active. Click the drop down arrow next to the word "normal" near the top on the left of the palette. Select "screen." That makes it much brighter doesn't it? It may be a little too bright now, but don't worry about that, we'll fix it soon.

• We only really want to make the reef area brighter. We want the foreground and background to stay how it was before we made the screen layer. Select your eraser tool in your tool palette. If you don't see your tool palette on your desktop, go to Windows >then put a checkmark next to "tools." The eraser tool looks just like a chalkboard eraser.

  

• Change the eraser brush size to a suitable size by clicking on the drop down arrow next to "brush" in the options bar that runs along the top of your screen.

  

• Choose a soft sided brush that is a good size for the area you want to take away brightness from. Put the eraser on your photo, click the mouse button and hold it down while erasing the areas you did not wish to make brighter with the screen layer. I erased all the background and foreground, and left the reef alone.

• Then to reduce the brightness just a bit from the reef area, make sure the top layer is active, then lower the opacity by clicking the drop down arrow next to where it says "Opacity 100%" You will get a slider to play with until you have it just exactly the brightness you like. I set it to 70%.

• Now Laura's photo looks like this:

  

• We need to merge the layers now. Click on the bottom layer, then go to Layers > Merge layers. The last thing I do to a photo is apply unsharp mask. This actually sharpens the image by removing some of the excess artifacts that were created when I resized it, and while I edited it. Go to Filters > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask, you will get a pop up options box. A good place to begin is with the following settings, these are the ones I use most of the time. However, you should play with the sliders to see what happens. Be careful not to get the horrible "over-sharpened" look, which causes white "halos" to show up around the image.

  

• You're done! here is a before and after shot for comparison.

  
  ^  Before  ^

  
  ^  After  ^

   

If you have questions, or if some area is not clear, feel free to ask questions in the tutorials forum. Be sure to use the title of the tutorial in your post, so that we know which one you're asking about.