In Lightroom 3, what’s the difference between the Exposure and Brightness sliders?
Asked 7/18/2010
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2 answers
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When editing in Lightroom 3, I compared two virtual copies of the same photo. On one, I increased Exposure by 1 stop. On the other, I increased Brightness from 50 to 100. The results look very similar, and the histograms are nearly the same, with only small differences in some brighter blue areas. What does each slider actually do, and when should I use Exposure versus Brightness?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
16y ago
2 Answers
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Increasing the Brightness tries to preserve the highlights while increasing Exposure will scale everything.
This image demonstrates it nicely:
source: http://lightroomkillertips.com/2010/lightroom-exposure-vs-brightness/
Originally by user19. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user19
16y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
In Lightroom 3, both sliders can make an image look brighter, but they target tones differently.
- Exposure changes the overall tonal scale with a stronger effect on brighter values/highlights. It acts more like a global exposure adjustment, so the brightest areas are pushed harder and can clip sooner.
- Brightness mainly affects the midtones, with less impact on highlights. It’s useful when you want the image to look brighter without changing the brightest areas as much.
That’s why your two versions look similar overall, but the Exposure-adjusted image shows slightly brighter light blues/highlights.
A good workflow is:
- Use Exposure to set the overall tonal scale.
- Use other tonal controls as needed.
- Use Brightness to fine-tune the image’s perceived brightness, especially in the midtones.
So: Exposure = stronger highlight/global shift; Brightness = gentler midtone lift.
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